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Image: SIERRA’s eFACiLiTY® Building
Image: SIERRA’s eFACiLiTY® Building
Image: SIERRA’s eFACiLiTY® Building

SIERRA’S eFACiLiTY® Green Office Building
Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu

Summary

Location Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India
Coordinates 11° N, 77° E
Occupancy Type Office (Software Development Centre)
Typology New Construction
Climate Type Tropical
Project Area 2,322.55  m2
Date of Completion 2017
Grid Connectivity Grid-connected
EPI (kWh/m2/yr) 56.2 kWh/m2/yr
Architect Dharmalingam Associates
MEP Design Guidance Mr. C Venkatesu
HVAC & Fire Protection Design Guidance Mr. Arul Murugan
Plumbing Ganga Consultancy
Green Building Consultants InHabit

SIERRA’s eFACiLiTY® building is a software development centre in Coimbatore, India. The building is one of the most innovative smart building as it leverages its cutting-edge latest-tech building management systems, controls, and automation to reduce its carbon footprint.

Image: SIERRA’s eFACiLiTY® Building
Image: SIERRA’s eFACiLiTY® Building
Image: SIERRA’s eFACiLiTY® Building

SIERRA’S eFACiLiTY® Green Office Building
Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu

Climate Responsive Design

The building is oriented such that the longer facades face towards east and west due to the site configuration. These facades have been installed with windows in a manner that the Window Wall Ratio (WWR) is maintained lower than 40%, however the windows are designed with external shading devices and high performance reflective glazing to harvest 86% daylight and provide natural daylight views. Strategically positioned skylights provide daylight for the central part of the building.

Building envelope is designed with 18-inch walls that provide thermal mass, high-performance reflective glazing, and cool roof tiles along with foam concreting is used to reduce thermal load, thus reducing the energy demand.

Landscaping and Water Efficiency

The development is a zero-discharge site by ensuring 100% rainwater harvesting and 100% wastewater treatment to tertiary standards.

Landscape water demand is reduced by over 40% through use of native drought tolerant species. Only treated water is reused for irrigation.

Image: SIERRA’s eFACiLiTY® Building
Image: SIERRA’s eFACiLiTY® Building
Image: SIERRA’s eFACiLiTY® Building
Image: SIERRA’s eFACiLiTY® Building
Image: SIERRA’s eFACiLiTY® Building

SIERRA’S eFACiLiTY® Green Office Building
Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu

Air-Conditioning

The Variable Refrigerant Flow system of exceptional Energy Efficiency Ratio (EER) of 13.85 has been selected for space conditioning. The facility boasts that the VRF system installed is 55% more energy-efficient than others and provides precise temperature control within the building.

Sensors installed across the building help to intelligently maintain temperature and fresh air supply. Zonal bi-directional heat recovery ventilation system forces stale air out and brings fresh air in. It harnesses the concept of heat transfer between hot fresh air and cold exhaust air to lessen load and cost of air conditioning.

Indoor Air Quality

Triple filtering ensures only the purest air enters workspaces. Demand Controlled Ventilation aided by CO2 sensors continually monitors CO2 levels and pumps fresh air zone-wise, when needed. Real-time IoT sensors monitor levels of volatile organic compounds, humidity, and particulate matter 2.5 & 10. 45% enhanced supply of fresh air and indoor plants keep air fresh and add aesthetics.

Artificial Lighting and Controls

100% LED lights have been used leading to a 0.26 W per sq ft lighting power density. This is 80% better than ASHRAE-defined standards.

The regularly used lighting is 100% automated. Sensor-activated passage lights, occupancy sensors and lux sensors activate lights to turn on only when the ambient light is not good enough. Work areas receive permissible lighting based on pre-defined schedules. Additional luminosity is allowed only for defined intervals to lessen wastage and turn off when floor is empty. Individuals in cabins can control their preferred lux levels with eFACiLiTY® Smart Facility app. All these features ensure maximum energy efficiency with provision to calibrate individually based on occupant’s individual needs, thus helping in energy savings of 64%.

Water Efficiency

89% water savings are achieved using waterless urinals, high efficiency sensor faucets, reuse of treated water for flushing and reuse of stored rainwater for domestic use.

Waterless urinals operate on minimum auto-flushing based on occupancy levels of the building using BMS reducing the need for frequent cleaning and usage of cleaning materials.

Sequencing Batch Reactor (SBR) based STP System, Rainy-filter for rainwater filtration, Raw water treatment using pressure sand filter & carbon filter, Rainwater additional treatment using dual-media filters & UV treatment leading to high-quality water use improving efficiency. Even the VRF system is deliberately designed to be air-cooled, rather than water-cooled.

Energy Monitoring

Power production and consumption, water consumption, occupancy, indoor air quality and temperature are monitored real-time. Continuous and comprehensive monitoring ensures that building performance is maintained at highest possible levels.

Image: SIERRA’s eFACiLiTY® Building
Image: SIERRA’s eFACiLiTY® Building
Image: SIERRA’s eFACiLiTY® Building
Image: SIERRA’s eFACiLiTY® Building

SIERRA’S eFACiLiTY® Green Office Building
Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu

Many smart facility management features have been deployed to ensure optimal performance during ongoing operations. 100% automation and integration with the Building Management System (BMS) take the building to the next level of efficiency.

The automation is achieved by seamlessly integrating eFACiLiTY® Enterprise Facility Management Software (CAFM/IWMS) with the BMS to automate facility booking, space management, resource management, maintenance management, energy dashboards, etc. The Variable Refrigerant Flow system of exceptional Energy Efficiency Ratio (EER) of 13.85 has been selected for space conditioning. The facility boasts that the VRF system installed is 55% more energy-efficient than others and provides precise temperature control within the building.

Smart Use of Solar Energy and Lighting Controls

Use of sensor-activated lights and relatively absence of switches has maximized use of natural daylight thus curbing power consumptions through artificial lighting usage

Sun-Tracking Shadow Management

The Somfy Animeo’s system tracks trajectory of the sun and weather conditions and accordingly keeps blinds open or closed, and even adjusts their angles to ensure maximum daylight while avoiding direct sunlight into the building. The eFACiLiTY® Smart Facility App gives users power to manually control blinds using mobile phones.

Other Smart Features

eFACiLiTY®  Smart Facility App used for individual comfort control, automation of entry/exit tasks to improve comfort and energy efficiency and automation of common office tasks.

Demand-controlled Diesel Generator which is designed to kick-in only when the battery backup reaches a critically low level, thus cutting down carbon emissions.

Automated, need-based operation of water pumping system by the building automation system avoids water wastage.

Image: SIERRA’s eFACiLiTY® Building
Image: SIERRA’s eFACiLiTY® Building
Image: SIERRA’s eFACiLiTY® Building
Image: SIERRA’s eFACiLiTY® Building

SIERRA’S eFACiLiTY® Green Office Building
Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu

The building has installed solar renewable system to meet the energy demand. This includes 60 KW rooftop solar PV, 4.3 KW Amorphous Silicon thin-film Building Integrated Photovoltaic (BIPV) glass panels on the southern façade and recently installed 20 KW bi-facial rooftop solar panel. This meets 80% of the energy demand and about 33% of the energy use further reducing the EPI to 18.8 KWh/m2/year. Further, the project has purchased renewable energy certificates to offset the residual energy demand through clean energy making this a carbon neutral building.

The rooftop solar panels are installed with the automatic sprinkler cooling system to maintain the temperature as these panels lose efficiency with every rise in temperature above 25 degrees centigrade. Real-time irradiation and solar panel temperature detectors provide data to the building automation system such that it activates automated valves to sprinkle small amounts of water. This reduces the panel temperature by about 3-5 degrees centigrade for every cycle and keeps the panels dust-free and improves their efficiency.

Image: SIERRA’s eFACiLiTY® Building
Image: SIERRA’s eFACiLiTY® Building

SIERRA’S eFACiLiTY® Green Office Building
Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu

  1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61mYfYpf1Ck
  2. https://www.greenestbuilding.com/
  3. https://www.inhabit.co.in/why-choose-us/green-building/sierra-odc-headoffice

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