Sector: Commercial office and retail 

Address: 80–100 Dorcas St & 99–111 Coventry St, South Melbourne 

Environmental upgrades:   

• Cooling towers 
• Chillers 
• Variable Speed Drives 
• Building Management System 

Key drivers: Improve building energy efficiency to reduce costs. 

Problem

Kings Business Park precinct is a five-building campus style development in South Melbourne. The precinct, which spans over 40,800 square meters, is made up of office and retail space and houses 57 tenants. Built between 1985 and 1987, buildings in the precinct required system upgrades to run more efficiently and reduce operational costs, valued at $3.2 million. 

Solution

The client, Asian Pacific Group, accessed an Environmental Upgrade Agreement through the City of Melbourne to make improvements to four of the five buildings. Retrofitted upgrades included new cooling towers and highly efficient chillers to replace existing units. New pumps and piping were installed, along with variable speed drives on pumps, fans and air-handling units, to reduce air conditioning system energy consumption. 

A new direct digital control system for the buildings was also installed to provide energy savings, replacing an analogue system that allowed only limited monitoring of equipment operation and performance. 

Outcome

The result of the building upgrades was a savings of $250,000 in energy bills each year. They also reduced annual carbon emissions by 2,680 tonnes of CO-e, the approximate equivalent of powering 323 homes for a year!