EPA Victoria’s Green Building 1st Birthday

Written by: Olivia Tattam, EPA Victoria

EPA Victoria has just celebrated the 1^st birthday of its new Head Office at 200 Victoria St, Carlton. This building is a redeveloped pre-loved building, which is now one of Melbourne’s most sustainable commercial office buildings. The building, most recently a former CUB laboratory, is one of the first commercial retrofit buildings in Australia to have achieved 6 Star Green Star Ratings in Office Design and will be aiming for 6 Star Green Star Ratings As Built and Office Interiors.

Sustainability permeates every aspect of 200 Victoria Street and EPA’s fit-out; from integrating a tri-generation plant, hollowing out the light-filled atrium, mapping natural sunlight into the building, selecting materials to improve air quality and video conferencing to reduce travel and greenhouse gas emissions. Other sustainable features include:

• Under floor air distribution and demand based air-conditioning
• Highest rated water and energy efficient appliances and fittings
• Solar hot water to complement the tri-generation
• Recycled, locally manufactured and eco-accredited materials
• Sensor and energy efficient lighting
• Double-glazed windows
• Rainwater harvesting

One of the key features of the building is the tri-generation plant that powers it - an efficient, low carbon option reducing reliance on coal-fired electricity. The natural gas fired plant generates electricity onsite and then the waste heat from the engine is captured to provide heating (hot water or low grade steam), or it is converted to chilled water to provide cooling through an absorption chiller. Some of the many benefits of tri-generation include reduced transmission losses, lower carbon intensity from natural gas and the re-use of waste heat.

Due to the infancy of using tri-generation in Australian buildings, there were issues that needed to be resolved in order for the plant to operate successfully; the first issue was that the plant was designed to operate in parallel to the grid but only set up to import from the grid when necessary. This presented a problem because the energy efficient design of 200 Victoria Street and EPA’s own energy consumption practices meant that the plant was never reaching the minimum load it required to operate and to do so would need to export electricity back to the grid.  After the plants operator negotiated a change in the contract to enable this, it was up and running however this then revealed another issue: when the plant was in full operation it exceeded maximum noise levels for neighbouring buildings. This was then rectified quickly with the installation of an extra silencer, taking it to 1 year from installation before it was operating successfully. Both of these are important lessons for other building managers and developers when implementing tri-generation.

Because of the use of natural gas, a finite resource, to power tri-generation plants, it should still only be considered the first step in what is hopefully a transition to a renewable energy future for Australian buildings. EPA’s investment in 100% GreenPower combined with a continued emphasis on driving down energy use are other examples of steps organisations can take. The energy efficient design of 200 Victoria St alone has reduced the amount of electricity required for EPA to deliver the same services by 20%, compared with it’s previous head office buildings, reported in the 1^st year. A further reduction is expected in the 2^nd year as all the features of the building are optimised.

EPA’s move to 200 Victoria St was a conscious, thought-out decision to reduce the ecological footprint of the organisation and support the future proofing of an existing building by making it a more sustainable and enjoyable place to work. However the journey doesn’t end here, it has only just begun.  As EPA has experienced, there are predicted, and unpredicted, features of a building that can take time to commission as well as knowledge about the features that must be learnt and shared. EPA also recognises that a sustainable building is not a sustainable building without the contribution of the people within it. Therefore working closely with building managers, training staff as tour guides, taking staff on tours and developing a building guide for staff are ensuring 200 Victoria St is a vibrant and healthy workspace that delivers on all aspects of environmental, social and economic sustainability.