Real Estate Investor Magazine South Africa September 2013 | Page 44

STRATEGIES majority of the Campus buildings pre-date the Energy Centre and are not readily able to utilise LTHW for heating. The LTHW system will be expanded as Campus buildings are refurbished. The waste heat can also be utilised to drive absorption chillers to generate chilled water and provide building cooling. The economics of providing cooling from waste heat are improving but have not yet reached the point of being an attractive business case. The Energy Centre has the potential to displace the cooling load of the three largest buildings on the Campus. Africa electricity grid is under stress. Absa has been contracted under this programme since October 2012. The daily dispatch for typically four hours on weekday evenings d isplaces the r isk of load shedd ing for approximately 3000 houses. The system is functioning smoothly with benefits for Absa, Eskom and South Africa. which, together with increasing gas supply competition following opening of the market, is likely to lead to further improvements in the financial viability of projects. The Carbon Tax will be introduced in 2015. This will provide a tangible financial benefit from the reduced Campus emissions due to the Energy Centre. As Campus buildings become due for refurbishment there will be the opportunity to make optimal use of the Energy Centre waste heat for building heating, domestic hot water and cooling. This will result in a corresponding reduction in CO2 emissions and Campus electrical power consumption. The Energy Centre has achieved its targeted benefits over the first three years. The next twenty years are exciting with the building refurbishment programme providing the opportunities for on going improvements to the Campus energy efficiency and carbon footprint . “Carbon Tax will be introduced in 2015. This will provide a tangible financial benefit” The Energy Centre is operating reliably and is transparent to the staff on the Campus. The financial and resilience benefits are quietly present in the background. The first three years The financial benefits of the Energy Centre have improved steadily over the first three years of operation. This has been achieved through constant monitoring and regular optimisation. A comprehensive monthly report is produced by SDE which provides Absa with the information required for group- wide energy reporting. T he Eskom Emergenc y Generation Programme allows Eskom to dispatch private generation during times when the South The future The Energy Centre has a remaining useful life of at least another 20 years. Over this time it will continue to be a valuable asset. T he new NER SA pricing reg u lations provide a new level of certainty in gas pricing RESOURCES Single Destination Engineering Single Destination Engineering Specialists in Data Centre and Energy Solutions Our core expertise includes: ? Energy centres and emergency power generation ? Combined heat and power solutions ? Alternative energy systems ? Energy efficiency solutions ? Data centres and high resilience installations ? Risk and single point of failure analysis ? Planning of works in a live critical environment Tel: [phone] Email: [email protected] Web: www.sde.co.za