Electricity
Pharmaceutical campus uses AI to reduce carbon footprint
Client — Pharmaceutical Company
Context
The client, a multinational pharmaceutical company that has offices around the world, has a priority to decarbonize their value chain and minimise their environmental impact. Currently, the company is seeking innovative cleantech partnerships to help meet their goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions from their operations by 40% before 2025.
To support this goal, the client reached out to BrainBox AI looking for a solution for their sustainability and energy program in their Californian campus. As part of this program, the company has also committed to delivering detailed CSR and sustainability reporting. After careful consideration and evaluation of BrainBox AI’s solution features and benefits, the team involved decided we were the right fit for their program.
To support this goal, the client reached out to BrainBox AI looking for a solution for their sustainability and energy program in their Californian campus. As part of this program, the company has also committed to delivering detailed CSR and sustainability reporting. After careful consideration and evaluation of BrainBox AI’s solution features and benefits, the team involved decided we were the right fit for their program.
| Location | Los Angeles - California |
| Control System | Siemens |
| Total Square footage | 88980 |
| Total square footage controlled by BrainBox AI | 44490 |
| HVAC Equipment Controlled | Variable air handling units (VAV) and Air handling units (AHU) |
Process
A tailored sustainability project
The client and BrainBox AI teams collaborated to qualify and select a building in the campus to kickstart the sustainability project.
Once this office building was chosen, the BrainBox AI solution implementation began, starting with the mapping and labelling of the controlled equipment using industry standard Haystack tagging. Once the data was normalised, the solution began to learn the thermal behaviour of the different zones in the building and then incorporated external data points such as weather predictions and utility tariff structures. With this knowledge it was able to predict the future state of zones with up to 99.6% accuracy. A curated set of algorithms was then deployed to achieve an optimal energy consumption and ultimately reduce the building’s carbon footprint.
95 Metric Tons of Carbon Dioxide (CO2) is equivalent to CO2 emissions from:
| Pounds of coal burned | 105109 |
| Gallons of gasoline consumed | 10690 |
| Miles driven by an average gasoline-powered vehicle | 235810 |
Results
BrainBox AI’s solution resulted in significant equipment efficiency improvements that allowed for an annualised electricity saving of 16% or 156,000 kWh. Given the power mix of California’s energy grid (66.91% non-renewables and unspecified energy1), these electricity savings go a long way in reducing the building’s carbon footprint.
By achieving a reduction in electricity consumption and peak demand periods, the client was able to recognize carbon reductions of 95 tCO2eq from its office building. This is equivalent to the carbon dioxide emissions from 105,109 pounds of coal burned. Furthermore, the reduction in energy demand during peak periods allowed and will continue to empower the client to curtail its reliance on non-renewable sources.
1https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/california-electricity-data/2020-total-system-electric-generation
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