Local energy for Campuses
Playing an active role in the energy system pays for your site
Energy-efficiency has long been an important determining factor in the economic efficiency of any building complex or site. In addition to the financial aspects, social requirements like emissions reduction have also become an issue today. Distributed energy solutions enable infrastructure facilities and campuses – such as airports, train stations, hospitals, and universities – to actively define their role in the energy system. This can either mean active participation in the energy market or simply more independence and resilience. Siemens’ tailor-made local energy solutions make it possible to achieve previously unattainable levels of cost-efficiency, sustainability, and security of supply.
Take control and exploit market opportunities
Owners and operators strive for a more sustainable and truly resilient power supply, and at the same time they want to boost economic efficiency – but energy isn’t their core business. That’s why Siemens offers a large range of solutions and services that allow the delegation of the energy issue, with guaranteed results and in line with the defined requirements, whether it’s sustainability or improved resilience. A local energy solution can even create revenue by enabling active participation in the energy market.
The right solution for your situation
Today the goal of increasing sustainability is a major challenge for infrastructure facilities and campuses. A local distributed energy solution, however, allows them to actively reduce CO₂ emissions and at the same time address energy consumption.
In 2007, The Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) in Australia embarked on an ambitious sustainability program to reduce energy and water use and carbon emissions by 25 percent. Targets were set to reduce grid electricity use by 263 million kilowatt hours over eight years and achieve an annual reduction in carbon emissions of 30,000 tons and 53 million liters of water. Impressively, these targets were achieved four years ahead of schedule. Today the campus is monitored by a cloud-based energy and sustainability platform that analyzes 17,000 data points and provides actionable insights on how to further maximize the performance of the buildings.
A reliable power supply is paramount for any infrastructure facility or campus. In many cases, and especially in regions with a less than sufficient power supply infrastructure, distributed energy solutions help bring availability, reliability, and power quality up to par.
This is how infrastructure facilities and campuses can protect their operations and processes while keeping their power supply scalable in order to safeguard future development opportunities.
The Siemens Midrand site in South Africa upgraded its energy and building systems with a distributed energy solution that ensures the required degree of security of supply, substantially reduces energy costs, and makes the entire site more sustainable. The system currently supplies about 40 percent of the site’s power requirements and has lowered energy costs by a whopping 40 percent – not least by making huge cuts in peak load power consumption phases, which had a positive impact on the energy supplier’s pricing model.
Today energy cost optimization is an important starting point when it comes to maintaining or even increasing the competitiveness and economic viability of an infrastructure facility or campus. A distributed energy solution puts all the important advantages at your fingertips: energy mix optimization, energy-efficiency increases, and smart consumption reduction along with opportunities to reduce grid fees and dependence on energy suppliers.
Algonquin College of Applied Arts and Technology in Eastern Ontario, Canada has joined a strategic partnership with Siemens to reach this goal and at the same time significantly reduce emissions. Siemens implemented a unique energy management system that enables the College to create, direct, and store its own energy, which is generated by solar PV and a cogen plant. This is how Algonquin College was able to reduce its energy expenses by USD $3.2 million annually and at the same time become a “living lab” of leading-edge sustainability technologies that aims at emitting zero greenhouse gas by 2042.
Intelligent approaches to energy supply improvements for infrastructure facilities and campuses
Distributed energy solutions allow you to take control of your energy supply. Local solutions combining the generation of heat, power, and cooling with energy management systems and storage solutions boost your company’s sustainability, resilience, and profitability.
Economic intelligence
Data analytics and energy management enable energy cost optimization thanks to increasingly transparent consumption patterns and new opportunities to control generation and demand. In addition, participation in the electricity market provides the opportunity to generate revenue by selling excess power or participating in energy reserve markets, for example.
Supply intelligence
Distributed energy solutions provide a reliable and resilient energy supply, both in independent operation and connected to the public power grid. Power parameters like voltage and frequency can be controlled precisely, loads can be balanced in an efficient manner, and power fluctuations caused by intermittent renewable generation can be cushioned.
Sustainability intelligence
An intelligent combination of local power and heat and cooling generation, storage solutions, and energy management systems facilitates a shift toward a more sustainable energy mix. This helps you implement your energy efficiency and sustainability goals.
