Quick Notes

Sector: Commercial

Contract Type: BMS 

Developer: JACOBS

Owner: John Holland

Mech Contractor: ACES Air Conditioning

Location: 45 Waterloo Rd, Macquarie Park, Sydney

The background

Glasshouse was completed in 2020 and is occupied by Transport for NSW. The sleek, A-grade, commercial building is located in Macquarie Park’s thriving business district in Sydney. Alerton Australia delivered the BMS to the building.

The project site is owned and developed by John Holland, and is the first and largest building of eight to be constructed in the precinct.

Results

Our solution has assisted Glasshouse in acquiring a 6 Star NABERS Rating. Through our fine-tuning, Glasshouse is ensuring full system optimisation. Management and operators can easily identify any underperforming or overproducing equipment, reducing any unnecessary energy production and lowering energy costs.

Glasshouse is also prolonging the lifespan of the building’s equipment, identifying any faults or failures so a fast solution can be implemented to fix it before it becomes too costly or needs to be replaced entirely. As well as mechanical optimisation, Glasshouse is increasing tenant well-being and satisfaction by improving the comfort and quality of the indoor environment.

Our solution

Once we finished the BMS, after the DLP period, we put in place a smart VAV selection strategy that will minimise the heating and cooling air flows from the AHUs while guaranteeing thermal comfort throughout the building. This will reduce operational costs while increasing tenant wellbeing.

In addition, we have applied advanced control strategies which target the pressure and temperature reset controls on the Air Handlers with the intent of reducing energy consumption while maintaining excellent indoor air quality.

We fine-tuned the AHU’s economy cycle to allow for more free cooling from the outside air. We have optimised the underfloor heating by tuning the setpoints and strategy in place to allow gradual heating through the slabs while ensuring long heating hours with outside air lockouts. Those changes in setpoints were compensated by adjusting the lobby AHU’s setpoints.

Lastly, we have installed an additional pressure sensor on the ground level, significantly improving our monitoring and control over the atrium fans. Our thorough tuning and optimisation on the building’s atrium pressure allowed us to have improved sensitivity and control over the pressure reset strategy while maintaining positive building pressure.