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Carbon neutral solution for premium Sydney office tower
When Australian HVAC supplier, ACS, were given the opportunity to provide an indoor climate solution for a project committed to carbon neutrality, their first thought was to contact Lindab for support.
Metro Martin Place North Tower was set to be a striking addition to the Sydney skyline and achieve new levels of occupant comfort in premium office space. The client was an early adopter of chilled beam technology in other premises and positive feedback from staff informed their choice for the new building.
Carat chilled beams from Lindab are highly valued in high-end office buildings for their excellent user comfort in addition to being Eurovent certified for energy efficiency however, to establish if the ultimate deliverables would meet the client’s aspirations, comprehensive further testing was needed.
Lindab tested to successfully prove that the required design conditions could be realised and to evaluate performance in possible scenarios such as extreme weather conditions.
What makes Carat so effective is the unique cold-rolling process used to manufacture the heat-carrying profiles. The process fully encapsulates the water-carrying copper pipes within two thin aluminium heat absorbing sheets. The copper pipe is metallurgically united with the aluminium, ensuring optimised heat transfer. This manufacturing process not only produces a highly effective heat exchanger, it does so with relatively little material.
The Carat H-84 proposed for the project weighs just 5 kg per metre but provides up to 260 W of cooling per metre, representing over 50 W of cooling per kg of material. This translates to an extremely high 'cooling density' for a passive device.
Lindab also addressed the issue of packaging and transportation of the product by nesting goods in pairs and loading them onto crates made of sustainable timber. This has contributed to the relatively low use of materials and transport, contributing towards the low carbon goals.
The fact that Carat can demonstrate relatively low usage of materials and transport would suggest that it is a good candidate to realise carbon neutrality. This has been investigated further via The Footprint Company, via Dr Caroline Noller.
The Footprint Company complete an embodied carbon assessment of the Carat beam, in addition to alternative beam solutions being considered for the project and were able to show that Lindab beams have approximately 50% lower embodied carbon than the competitor alternative and full offset for carbon neutrality could be achieved for a relatively small cost.
The assessment also highlighted opportunity for Lindab to further reduce embodied carbon through an increase in recycled materials. Subsequently, Lindab have re-confirmed the use of more recycled material and TFC have generated an updated Carbon Product Declaration for the products.
ACS were able to provide a satisfactory solution with a proposal to purchase carbon offsets as necessary to offer the products are net zero.
