Speedy recently opened its new Innovation Centre in Milton Keynes; an industry-first low carbon facility packed with cutting edge smart control technology.
Part of Speedy’s mission is to reduce energy usage, emissions and shrink its carbon footprint whilst increasing the emphasis placed on employee wellbeing. To help achieve this at the Milton Keynes site the hire specialist turned to global associates.
Buildings like the Innovation Centre are notoriously inefficient and difficult to retrofit with energy efficient technology due to their mix of office, retail and warehouse space. In addition, every Speedy site is different and for the solution to be successful in the long term it would need to be rolled out across their estate. A ‘one size fits all’ BMS was therefore not an option.
From the initial site visit at Milton Keynes, global associates focused on the need to provide a smart solution which met the objectives of Speedy whilst ensuring that every single item installed added value to the project. This was achieved thanks to the implementation of a Smart Eco Solution which brings together Edge computing, Cloud enablement, LoRaWan wireless sensors and a Tridium N4 powered control platform to create a hybrid IoT BMS solution.
The global associates system enables integration of every area of the Innovation Centre with information feeding back into the smart control platform to provide centralised control and real time energy usage data via a user friendly dashboard. The dashboard provides the occupants with access to real time energy usage data which allows them to see the effects of their actions and make continuous changes to the way they are working. More importantly it allows them to see and take ownership of their energy usage.
Carefully controlled ambient levels of heating and cooling create a healthier working environment to maintain the comfort and wellbeing of staff, whilst occupants also benefit other energy saving measures such as PIR controlled lighting which uses daylight harvesting to maintain a 300 lux level.
Maria Willings, Speedy regional director for Midlands and Anglia, comments: “By monitoring conditions in all rooms, the global system has provided us with unparalleled levels of control over air quality, heating and cooling, allowing us to monitor energy use in real time.
“With this system in place we have seen significant reductions in energy usage and can run the whole site on less energy per hour than it takes to run a shower. Consequently, we are now taking these ideas to our other properties and looking at similar ways to improve efficiency. “