The Quasar team has configured and implemented an energy management system for Argosy, one of New Zealand’s leading listed property companies. The energy management system provides energy consumption and efficiency data across Argosy's commercial property portfolio and is being rolled out across Argosy’s properties in stages with the first stage recently being handed over.

“We have a large number of buildings in our portfolio with several already certified and others in the process of becoming NABERSNZ and Green Star rated,” said Saatyesh Bhana, Head of Sustainability at Argosy. “As a result, we needed a system that would allow us to easily view the relevant data for each building in our portfolio. Quasar’s consolidated portal system was a perfect solution for us”.
 
The energy management system, comprising Schneider Electric EcoStruxure Power Monitoring Expert software and PowerLogic meters, was configured to Argosy’s requirements and provides for future properties to easily be added. The near real-time information is available to view via a suite of rich dashboards and comprehensive reports that categorise consumption data into a range of measures including whole building versus tenant versus base building, location, and property type. In addition, the energy information is normalised into per square metre and per workstation to allow efficiencies to be compared across the portfolio.

“Argosy’s initial focus is tracking electricity usage across the office portfolio, and we can now view and compare this data for several of our office buildings. To support our sustainability ratings Argosy is also adding meters for water and other commodities, as well as carbon reporting. Quasar’s system can also provide power quality reporting in the future if required,” said Saatyesh.

“In order for Argosy to set energy reduction targets for its buildings we needed to know how much total energy we were using. Partnering with Quasar has allowed us to measure that energy usage and know where we are using it. The system goes further to monitor and advise of abnormal usage to allow maintenance teams to investigate and rectify issues in an efficient manner”.

The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority (EECA) has recently installed a Quasar energy management system in their Wellington offices, to demonstrate the value of monitoring energy use. The system features an energy monitoring display using PowerLogic ION Enterprise software, which gathers, analyses, stores and displays all energy data in a user-friendly format.

The display provides an easy, cost-effective way of tracking energy use in the offices and saves on administrative costs as no manual meter reading is involved. It has also been tailored to allow EECA to compare energy use between its two different office floors.

Mike Underhill, Chief Executive, says the system allows EECA to identify opportunities to refine existing energy saving measures and demonstrate the potential for improving energy use in an office environment.

“The energy monitoring display has enabled EECA to identify a series of small improvements that combined add-up to a noticeable saving year on year.

The project also provides a valuable demonstration model that can be viewed by commercial building owners or tenants.”

Anyone interested in viewing the system should contact Senior Relationship Manager Mike Bourke at EECA, email mike.bourke@eeca.govt.nz or phone (04) 470 2227.

PowerLogic ION Enterprise software is a complete power management solution for energy providers and industrial or commercial operations. Learn more?