Credit Suisse Group
At a Glance
Industry
Financial Services and Insurance
Project Type
Commercial Energy Efficiency
Year
2016
Location
New York, NY
Summary
Jordan Burke identified opportunities for energy savings by upgrading Credit Suisse’s chiller plant operation.
Goals
Credit Suisse, a major global financial institution, enlisted EDF Climate Corps fellow Jordan Burke to help them determine how to more efficiently run their building systems following a multiyear project of renovating and consolidating their American headquarters in New York. The bank already had energy saving devices such as VFDs on most pumps and fans and lighting occupancy sensors throughout the building. Credit Suisse incorporated replacement of all lighting with LEDs and advance lighting controls during the headquarters renovation. Jordan was asked to focus attention on improving the efficiency of chiller plant operation.
Solutions
He gathered information on the current operating conditions by meeting with and interviewing operating staff, walking the engineering spaces and collecting data from the building and energy monitoring systems. Jordan focused efforts on reducing energy use in continuously operating equipment and systems that were specifically impacted by the reduced building load and footprint. Priority was given to projects that could improve efficiency of Credit Suisse’s existing cutting edge equipment to reduce costs without the need for significant capital investment. Jordan identified savings by reducing chiller plant pump speeds, identifying electrical and mechanical support equipment that could be shut down without impacting redundancy design requirements and altering operation of the ice plant to take advantage of recent changes in the method of purchasing electricity.
Potential Impact
Jordan implemented over $240,000/year worth of savings during his 12 weeks at Credit Suisse by making changes to operating parameters and identifying incorrect electrical billing by the energy provider. In addition, he outlined plans for an additional $300,000 per year in savings that can be implemented with negligible upfront cost. In total, Jordan was able to identify annual savings of over $500,000 and annual reductions of 1.4 million kWh and of 353 tons of CO2.