CASE STUDY: ANZ Bank Headquarters
The ANZ Bank project won Schneider Electric’s Digital Power 2020 Project of the Year, acknowledging the impactful business results achieved for the customer and the technical solutions provided by AZZO.
ANZ Bank headquarters is the largest office complex in Australia. Completed in 2010, the mixed-use facility consists of 10 floors and over 130,000 square meters. Energy is supplied from a combination of utility power and a number of distributed energy resources (DERs) including generators, cogeneration plants and solar.
THE CHALLENGE
ANZ Bank’s modern headquarters have several large loads, including 4 chillers, and approximately 200 variable speed drives (VSDs) for 42 chiller/ AHU pumps, 150 air conditioners and other loads. The varied loads have contributed to severely distorting the AC voltage through rectification. The resulting power quality issues, mainly harmonics, put a strain on the site infrastructure, specifically the cogeneration units, which lead to outages and resultant gas costs.
The combined impacts of large horsepower motor operation, and the electrical transformation from AC to DC and back to AC as a part of the operation of a VSD, in combination with the power supplies found in LED lighting and computers conspired together to distort the power quality within the facility. The distortion was so significant that it caused the cogeneration units to fail and go offline.
Initially, to solve this problem, ANZ had Active Harmonic Filters (AHF) installed. However, due to multiple hardware issues, those units failed after a few years resulting in site downtime and lost productivity. Furthermore the AHF units were not connected to any software for continuous monitoring which affected prompt and active diagnosis.
As a result of the failures, all the AHF units were turned off, which meant that the cogeneration units were unable to run due to high harmonic levels. This created a monthly recurring cost from the gas utility since 2019.
As an internationally certified Master EcoXpert in power quality and active harmonic filters, we deployed the AZZO EnergyX Portable metering platform, underpinned the success of this challenging, but rewarding project. For more detailed information on the solutions and results achieved, read the case study now.
