Boosting energy efficiency with B-Tune

Auckland University of Technology's new Mana Hauora building is one of the most energy efficient in their portfolio. The strategic application of Beca's B-Tune technology helped reduce average energy consumption by 30%.

After opening its doors to students in January 2017, the Auckland University of Technology's (AUT) Mana Hauora building now forms the centrepiece of its South Campus - the first university campus with a significant presence in the sprawling suburbs of South Auckland.

Apart from a strong social objective to increase the participation of local youth in tertiary education, especially those from Maori and Pasifika backgrounds, AUT wanted Mana Hauora to form a new benchmark of energy efficiency across its building portfolio.

To achieve this, AUT engaged Beca to undertake continual building tuning activity over a 12-month period, based on our expertise in applying B-Tune technology across other large-scale projects.

From the beginning of our engagement, we worked closely with the university to establish ambitious yet realistic energy efficiency targets, before investigating areas where they could make savings. The most prominent of these was the configuration of their HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning) system.

By making a few tweaks to the control settings of their HVAC and lighting systems, including scheduling plant operations to take account of occupancy at different times of day, and adjusting ventilation flow rates and supply air temperature, AUT was able to reduce Mana Hauora’s total energy consumption by 30% from 101 kWh/m2 to 68 Kwh/m2 over a 18-24 month period.

This represents total savings on the annual energy bill of $27,000, a reduction equivalent to the energy usage of 21 average New Zealand households per year. With these extra funds at their disposal, AUT can invest more in their core service of educating New Zealand’s future.