Digital Cx and Optimized Start Stop are the main sources of energy savings at Thurlow

About Thurlow

745 Thurlow is a 400,000 square foot state of the art office building with deluxe retail at its ground level. It is in the heart of Downtown Vancouver, at the center of the city’s fastest growing high-end retail hub. The building is in close proximity to a variety of stores, restaurants, and transit.

Thurlow’s main goal was to transform it’s building operations that would allow them to offer amazing experiences to everyone interacting with Thurlow, reduce maintenance costs and save energy in the long run. 

After KODE OS integration, Thurlow property managers and building engineers have full command and control and visibility into their HVAC, Lighting, Electrical Metering, Air Quality, Smart Bathroom, Leak Detection, and Work Orders. 

The challenge

Thurlow consisted of over  2,000+ devices with 28,000+ points. The challenge was to optimize the building operations and cut down energy costs while offering amazing experiences to all the people who interacted with Thurlow

The solution

KODE OS integrated all the base building systems and IoT (HVAC, Lighting, Electrical Metering, Occupancy, Air Quality, Smart Bathroom, Leak Detection, and Work Order), normalized the data and enabled the two main apps (Smart Commissioning and Optimized Start Stop) that would enable Thurlow to optimize its operations. 

KODE OS has enabled stakeholders to monitor, visualize and analyze each space separately. It offers the ability to compare usage and spaces day by day, month over month, annual comparisons as well as hourly. Because the system has the ability to command and control core systems, it uses machine learning to understand how each system within each space operates and optimizes them based on real data and predictions related to scheduling, weather, occupancy, etc. 

Dynamic equipment scheduling

Optimized Start Stop (OSS) is a smart scheduling system that uses machine learning to turn your equipment on and off at the most efficient times, maximizing energy savings and equipment lifespan. It gathers data from various sources and adjusts to your operational goals.

6 months case study

• 78k+ runtime hours saved
• $6,400 annual energy savings

OSS results

Equipment affected by OSS is shown in the table below along with their total cost, average lifecycle, and equipment runtime savings. OSS extends equipment lifecycles by over one year by reducing runtime on a daily basis, thus eliminating the need for over a year of equipment replacement ($3.4M total cost of replacement) from runtime savings alone.

Digital commissioning

Digital Cx is an automated testing service that checks the functionality of devices like heating, cooling, and fans in a building. It produces useful reports to help prioritize maintenance. Unlike traditional one-time commissioning, FTT is ongoing and more cost-effective as it’s integrated into your building management system.

Consideration & results

Each FCU consumes an average of 412 watts per hour. For these FCUs alone, OSS realized over 78,000 hours of runtime savings in six months. This amounts to 32,171.8 kWh savings, or, at $0.1 per kWh, $3,200. In this study, only energy savings from FCUs were considered. Furthermore, only an example of a Functional Testing Tool workflow was included, but we use it on various devices.

Digital Cx results

In the six-month period, KODE OS tested over 3,000 Fan Coil Units (FCUs) and identified over 60 heating and cooling issues. Through the integration of work orders, Thurlow’s team identified issues across their building systems and responded to them faster using KODE OS Mobile