Context

With over 1600 tenant employees, the Fortis Properties Blue Cross Centre, located in downtown Moncton, is easily the largest office complex in the city. The Centre hosts Medavie Blue Cross, law offices, a public library, a bank, a cafeteria, other office tenants, as well as boutique retailers. The facility includes an eight-floor high-rise, a three-floor low-rise, as well as a four-storey annex and parking garage.

Faced with the pressure of rising energy costs, Fortis Properties engaged electrical and mechanical contractor Black and McDonald and ADI Limited to develop a building energy retrofit plan.

“Our energy costs are significant.  Prior to the retrofit, our energy expenses were close to $1 million annually.  As a result of the retrofit, we have been able to decrease those expenses somewhere in the range of eight per cent.  Our consumption is down considerably,” said Richard Krick, Operations Manager for Fortis Properties’ Blue Cross Centre.

The Company’s motivation to retrofit the building was two-fold – there was potential for cost savings and to minimize the environmental footprint of the building. “Obviously, the financial gains were a motivation to move forward with the retrofit.  We were also pleased with the environmental benefits of reducing our carbon footprint,” noted Krick.

Krick takes pride in the work done on the building.  The retrofit of the Blue Cross Centre has resulted in a 348 tonne greenhouse gas emissions reduction and the predicted 4.2 year payback on the investments look like an overestimation given current energy rates, says Krick.

Scott Hue, the New Brunswick service manager for Black and McDonald, made the initial tour of the building with Krick and compiled a list of potential opportunities for energy savings. Together they came up with a proposal for Fortis Properties and contacted ADI Limited for an energy audit.

The audit revealed a number of areas where operations and maintenance personnel could better monitor and control cooling, heating and air-flow systems.  As in most buildings of similar age, the control systems previously ran at one constant speed.

“And because most systems are designed for worst case scenarios, like minus 20 degree weather, what we did was implement the technology that allows for variation, like the variable frequency drives,” says Hue.

Black and McDonald installed water shut-off valves for more than 500 heat pumps and installed 22 variable frequency drives on the supply and return fans, four cooling towers and the building’s main water-loop pumps.

“The real benefit is to be able to operate at part speed,” says Hue. Varying the speed of the pumps in proportion to the required flow of water for heating and cooling significantly reduces the amount of energy consumed by the pumps.

Krick credits the seamless retrofit to good communication with Black and McDonald, along with an easy grant application path by Efficiency New Brunswick.  Fortis Properties received a $25,000 grant for the project, estimated at $320,000.

The payoffs in energy savings are already clear with projected annual energy savings of 9.13%

Tim Doherty, Regional Property Manager with Fortis Properties, oversees operations at the Blue Cross Centre and is impressed with the result of the retrofit.  “We will certainly apply our learnings from this project to other assets in our portfolio.  The environmental and business benefits support this type of initiative,” said Doherty.  “Like Fortis Properties, our tenants are proactive in their environmental commitment.  This is one way to further support and respect that commitment.”