Arbejdernes Landsbank in Kalundborg achieves annual savings of 67 %

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The stock listed Danish retail bank Arbejdernes Landsbank has used artificial intelligence for energy optimisation at their 70 branches – but one branch has a particularly relevant history to delve into.

On Bredgade in the town of Kalundborg, the bank has made several energy optimisation efforts – first by optimising the operation of technical facilities and later by installing energy-efficient ventilation motors.

In this article, we explain how artificial intelligence has helped the bank’s energy managers to identify energy savings and subsequently document the effect of annual savings.

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Artificial intelligence identified major energy waste in the building

Arbejdernes Landsbank’s building portfolio, like that of most other building owners, is a mix of older and newer buildings. Some buildings have well-run technical facilities that are centrally or decentralised and controlled by the building management system (BMS).

When the bank began to analyse the energy consumption in its branches, however, it became clear that not all building automation was working as intended. The branch on Bredgade in Kalundborg was one of the buildings with the poorest energy performance.

The graph below shows how the energy consumption in the building suddenly changed its operating pattern around 23 June 2019. The artificial intelligence identified the increased baseload consumption, marked with the dashed line. Here you can see how the idle consumption in all idle hours increases from approximately 2 kW to just over 6 kW.

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The ventilation system was optimised, resulting in great savings

The difference of 4 kW between good and poor energy performance may not sound like much, but at a bank branch that “only” has active operations from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. on a daily basis, there are far more hours when the building is unused than hours in which it is used.

Out of a year’s 8,760 hours, the operating time is only approximately 2,500 hours – i.e., the bank is closed more than two-thirds of the time!

At the branch in Kalundborg, the problem was found in the control of the ventilation system. It did not require new technology or many hours for the technician to correct the problem once the poor operation was noticed.

When control of the ventilation system was optimised, the baseload consumption fell back to the optimal level for the building (marked with a dashed green line).

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Investment in new ventilation motors further lowered consumption

As part of an ambitious climate strategy, Arbejdernes Landsbank wanted to further optimise energy consumption after having optimised the operations of all 70 branches. The branch on Bredgade was one of several places where new EC motors were purchased for the ventilation systems to lower energy consumption even more.

As with the previous energy improvement, the change could be measured in terms of consumption in the building. Since the ventilation systems now only ran during the hours of operation, the energy savings had to be found here as well.

As can be seen from the graph below, activity consumption fell sharply during the installation and commissioning of the new ventilation motors, after which consumption stabilised at a significantly lower level than before.

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Both energy savings are automatically documented with artificial intelligence

Just as artificial intelligence automatically identified energy waste when the ventilation systems suddenly ran at night, artificial intelligence has also helped to document energy improvements after implementation.

For the branch on Bredgade, there are thus documented savings of 45 megawatt hours – or approximately DKK 90,000 annually at an electricity price of DKK 2/kwh.

Before the ventilation motors were replaced – and the operating times reduced – the annual consumption was approximately 68,000 kWh/year, and with documented energy savings of 45,000 kWh, the energy consumption has therefore been reduced by approximately 67 %.

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You can read more about how Arbejdernes Landsbank works strategically to create a more sustainable bank and how they can help lift your company.

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