We helped UCL achieve targeted maintenance and a BREEAM Outstanding rating; here’s how

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Based in the heart of London, UCL’s 34-acre campus accommodates a whopping 16,000 members of staff and over 50,000 students. In fact, UCL is the second largest university in the UK, based on total enrolments. To accommodate so many staff and students, UCL offers a wide, diverse range of living and learning spaces; from 24-hour laboratories to a student centre with more than 1,000 unique study areas.

To keep buildings comfortable and in line with health and safety requirements, they’re monitored and controlled by a modern building energy management system (BEMS) and associated smart technology. Not only does it help keep temperature and humidity at optimal levels, but it provides data-driven insights that can be used to pinpoint energy saving opportunities.

UCL’s energy saving ambitions

Saving energy is a key consideration for UCL. As such a large institution, it takes its carbon footprint seriously and has pledged to achieve net zero by 2030 – 20 years ahead of the UK Government’s 2050 target.

Kendra’s contributions

UCL knows that to achieve a net zero building, it must maximise its energy efficiency. That’s why it onboarded Kendra, a BEMS specialist that shares its ambitious sustainability goals.

Kendra was onboarded in August 2015 to carry out PPM and reactive support for 143 UCL buildings, covering over 1,000 controllers and smart technologies.

Since joining, Kendra’s taken on additional projects and introduced new energy saving technology and initiatives. All of which have contributed towards UCL’s impressive ‘outstanding’ rating from BREEAM – the world’s leading sustainability assessment tool.

UCL’s goals

On top of day-to-day maintenance tasks, UCL tasked Kendra with:

• Implementing a modern BEMS system which meets its complex, constantly evolving needs.
• Streamlining BEMS maintenance by adopting a targeted maintenance approach
• Maximising energy efficiency and reducing running costs
• Designing a centre that is comfortable and practical for students, while upholding the highest possible sustainability standards.

What’s PROActiv Analytics?

It integrates with your BEMS to streamline performance reporting and broaden energy management capabilities. While your BEMS tells you if something hasn’t been achieved, PROActiv Analytics goes one step further and tells you why, offering effective solutions with little to no human intervention.

A ‘virtual engineer’ with a bird’s eye view of your estate, PROActiv Analytics can integrate with most protocols and absorb huge amounts of granular data. It then processes, interrogates and makes sense of this data, so it can:

• Spot energy use patterns and saving opportunities
• Advise new approaches
• Create tasks and assign actions
• Track progress
• Generate actionable reports
• Create ‘smart service’ plans that flag issues and rank them based on business impact, using various criteria (e.g. cost or maintenance urgency)

Its ability to learn and predict future events make it a truly intelligent piece of software. Using bespoke Kendra programming rules and a 24-hour support package, PROActiv Analytics is a game-changer for businesses looking to cut carbon emissions.

Last year, it saved Kendra’s clients 3,635 MWh. The equivalent of 330 homes, powered 24 hours a day for five months straight.

What Kendra achieved

Targeted maintenance

Managing vastly different environments across a huge campus takes intricate planning. Especially as some buildings are Grade 1 listed while others are newly built. Taking this into account, and the fact there are different systems operating simultaneously across campus, Kendra developed long-term maintenance strategies and a BEMS ‘master plan’.

Part of this plan centred around consolidating UCL’s BEMS and ultimately fulfilling the university’s desire for standardised, innovative technologies. Kendra did this by migrating previous systems (mainly Trend and Schneider Sigma) to Schneider EcoStruxure – a modern, IoT-based system.

Kendra formed a detailed migration plan and provided foresight on operational procedures. Its permanent team of engineers and supervisors gained an indepth understanding of UCL’s systems and relevant logistical procedures, which helped drive plans forward.

To make UCL’s maintenance approach more targeted, Kendra installed PROActiv Analytics in some university buildings. In 2023, it was installed in seven buildings and has already made an impact. In the space of a year, it helped save 40% of one building’s total energy spend. Another received a CIBSE Retrofit Building of the Year Award and saved 518,000 kWh. That’s an annual saving of £155,000.