Australian
Tuesday 20/4/2010 Page: 33
ANZ Bank has invested nearly $9 million in smarter power generation technologies at its new Melbourne office, where a single plant now provides electricity, heating and cooling. The 320m² plant, on the roof of ANZ Centre in Docklands, is part of the bank's $35m investment into making the office as environmentally friendly as possible.
ANZ head of workplace development Agnieszka Aitken said the trigeneration plant and related green technologies developed by Bovis Lend Lease fulfilled a plan first set out in late 2006. natural gas turbines generate electricity and heat is produced as a byproduct. The waste heat goes through an absorption chiller, which converts it into "free" cooling. ANZ says the trigen system has four reciprocating engines that run on natural gas and produce about 36% of peak electricity demand for the base building.
This removes the need to fully tap into Victoria's electricity grid. Other energy efficiency and recycling efforts at ANZ include roof mounted solar cells and wind turbines for renewable energy, and a system where employees need to swipe their staff card to collect printouts, saving energy and paper, Ms Aitken said. Last month, National Australia Bank said it expected to cut its annual power bill by almost $1 million by installing a trigen plant at its main data centre in Melbourne.
0 comments:
Post a Comment