Danfoss Drives achieves energy savings for Exchange Plaza

Products by Danfoss Drives have helped the Exchange Plaza office building in Edinburgh reduce energy consumption in the building’s HVAC system.

Exchange Plaza is a landmark office building located on Lothian Road in the heart of Edinburgh’s financial district. The 100,000 sqft modern six-storey building is home to large companies that include oil and gas explorer Cairn Energy, law firm Burness Paull, the All Bar One restaurant and bar group, and craft beer producer BrewDog.

Recently, ECG, the company responsible for managing Exchange Plaza, decided to look for ways to reduce the energy used by 16 pumps in the building’s HVAC systems. Having approached Pump Action to carry out the pump assessment, Pump Action contacted Greenville, a Danfoss Drives partner. Steven Brown, business development manager at Greenville, working in conjunction with Pump Action, assessed the condition of the existing pump systems and provided a report on their efficiency, as well as to suggest improvements.

“We were asked by ECG to look at upgrading the pump equipment which was 25 to 30 years old,” explained Colin Ramsay of Pump Action. “We selected modern high efficiency pumps to complement the new Danfoss drives. The whole refurbishment process took two weeks to complete and there was no disruption to the tenants’ activities. We use Danfoss products a lot, and they are our go-to drives, not least because of the optimisation feature which makes them easy to set up to give the best performance.”

The VSDs installed at Exchange Plaza HVAC system are Danfoss VLT FC102 HVAC types. These drives are designed to provide optimised process control in heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) applications. They feature a wide range of functions specifically developed for use with pumps, fans and compressors to save energy, meet environmental regulations and reduce costs in modern buildings. 

An independent energy report from consultants Hulley & Kirkwood, carried out after the installation of the new pumps and drives, found that energy consumption was reduced by £3,500.00 per annum, from a figure of £11,162.00 before the upgrade work was carried out. 

Andrew Wilson, the ECG manager who was involved in the project from the very beginning, said, “We look after the Exchange Plaza building and it is our job to keep costs down while ensuring that the tenants continue to enjoy maximum comfort. Greenville has helped us on a number of occasions and now it was instrumental in supporting Pump Action’s installation on our site. We are very pleased with the results and so are the tenants. Danfoss Drives are helping us to operate more efficient and cost-effective systems that are also in line with our environmental policies. We are extremely pleased with the support received from the Danfoss Partner, Greenville, and we’ll undoubtedly be collaborating with them again in the future!”.