Mapletree Business City receives energy efficiency award

Office hub Mapletree Business City is cutting carbon emissions and costs to keep up with energy-savvy tenants.

Mapletree has installed a cutting edge cooling system, which will save the development millions of dollars in energy costs every year. And it is receiving recognition for doing so.

The cooling system is just part of the green infrastructure that cuts energy usage at Mapletree Business City, resulting in estimated energy cost savings of S$2.5 million annually.

The design is focused on efficiency – from the shape of the pipes to the pumping strategy.

Mapletree is expected to recoup the additional cost of buying the energy efficient system within two years. The system cost S$3 million more than average cooling systems.

The new Business City covers four city blocks, totalling 1.7 million square feet of lettable space.

The green infrastructure systems at Mapletree Business City are expected to save about 12 million kilowatt-hours of energy. That is the equivalent of powering almost 4,000, three-room HDB flats a year.

The project also saves about 6,300 metric tonnes of carbon annually, which is the equivalent of taking 1,250 cars off the road every year.

Lee Pheck Yan, head of Development Management at Mapletree, said: “Besides being friendly to the environment, all these could contribute to significant cost savings for us as well as for the tenants. The total energy saving is about 34 per cent, (with) 27 per cent from the chillers only.”

The project has received the “Energy Efficiency Leader Award” by air-conditioning provider Trane.

Trane said it continues to see a pick up in demand for energy efficient solutions.

Francis Yuen, who is the Asia Pacific president at Ingersoll Rand Climate Solutions (Trane), said: “You look at a scale of one to 10, five years ago, probably the level of interest is in the (range of) one or two, but now it has gone up a few notches, maybe five or six.

“I do not think there is any other facility in the world that has achieved this standard, and we are proud of that, because we are setting the stage for a more efficient system.”

Going forward, Trane said that the project has the potential to be involved in carbon trading.

Source : Channel NewsAsia – 5 Oct 2010

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