Eaton’s Office at Le Mont-Sur-Lausanne Becomes a Successful Energy Hub Based on Solar PV Generation, EV Chargers, and Battery Energy Storage

MORGES, SWITZERLAND / ACCESSWIRE / May 10, 2023 / New statistics from a real-world demonstration of Eaton’s Buildings as a Grid approach to the energy transition show how the company has saved money and reduced carbon emissions by turning one of its own buildings into an energy hub.

Eaton saved money on energy bills in 2022 despite soaring energy prices, and reduced carbon emissions by an average of one ton per month by implementing Buildings as a Grid at its office in Le Mont-sur-Lausanne, Switzerland, its EV charging centre of excellence.

Fabrice Roudet, general manager, Energy Transition business, Energy Transition, Digital and Services, EMEA, Eaton, said: “We turned our office building into a real-world testbed to gather statistics about how our Buildings as a Grid approach performs and achieved outstanding results, including 60% energy cost savings averaging 1,685CHF (€1,700) per month. The carbon saving will help us reach our corporate sustainability goal of reducing our carbon footprint towards net zero.”

Eaton’s Le Mont-sur-Lausanne office (1,650 m²) forms part of a mixed-use building, which also contains a kindergarten, a shop, and underground parking. The Buildings as a Grid approach that Eaton has implemented there comprises a 100 kWp rooftop solar PV array, an Eaton xStorage battery energy storage system (20 kW power and 21 kWh capacity), 16 EV chargers located in Eaton’s underground parking garage, and a DC fast charger located adjacent to the parking bays outside the building for the public to use.

Eaton’s proprietary Buildings Energy Management System (BEMS) software is used to optimise the use of all the solar energy generated from the rooftop array. Powerful algorithms within the software automatically direct power to where it is most needed for EV charging and other electrical requirements in the building, with any surplus stored in the xStorage battery to substitute power from the grid when prices are highest at times of peak demand. Surplus can alternatively be sold to the grid, if required, with resulting revenue used to offset energy bills.

Since July 2022, the Buildings as a Grid approach at Le Mont-sur-Lausanne has been monitored. Statistics were collated for the period from July to December 2022 to show how money and carbon emissions were saved by offsetting the power the building needed from the grid with renewable energy from the solar panels.

Eaton was aware that the Le Mont-sur-Lausanne building must also be energy efficient to perform successfully as an energy hub, so the company asked its new partner, IES, the world-renowned building analytics firm, to develop a digital twin of the building to interrogate the infrastructure and work out how even more energy savings could be made.

The digital twin showed how energy and carbon emissions could be reduced by a further 30% representing a total cost saving of 1,540CHF (approximately €1,550) per year, while at the same time enhancing the comfort of the building’s users through measures such as optimal use of window shading to maximise daylight use and prevent solar heat gain.

A digital twin is a 3D digital representation of a built environment asset – a building or its supporting infrastructure, for example – that can be interrogated by running various scenarios to inform decisions about its future. Learning from the asset’s past performance leads to better decision-making when developing a roadmap for its future.

Richard Fletcher, chief revenue officer at IES, explained that: “Digital twins are key to our work with Eaton because they respond and behave like their real-world counterparts, translating data into essential decision-support information. For Eaton’s customers, we will examine how a building is used, with a focus on both energy efficiency and user comfort, before constructing a digital twin to forecast the potential reduction in the building’s energy demand, as well as energy savings and payback periods from various applications of Eaton’s Buildings as a Grid approach.”

Contact Eaton to learn more about the Buildings as a Grid approach, and discover how its ecosystem transforms both new buildings and renovation projects into energy hubs that optimise energy consumption while at the same time supporting a flexible, scalable EV charging infrastructure, renewable energy generation, and energy storage.

About Eaton

Eaton is an intelligent power management company dedicated to improving the quality of life and protecting the environment for people everywhere. We are guided by our commitment to do business right, to operate sustainably and to help our customers manage power – today and well into the future. By capitalizing on the global growth trends of electrification and digitalization, we’re accelerating the planet’s transition to renewable energy, helping to solve the world’s most urgent power management challenges, and doing what’s best for our stakeholders and all of society.

Founded in 1911, Eaton is marking its 100th anniversary of being listed on the New York Stock Exchange. We reported revenues of $20.8 billion in 2022 and serve customers in more than 170 countries. For more information, visit www.eaton.com. Follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.

About IES

Over the last 25+ years, IES has built a solid reputation as the leading global innovator in integrated performance-based analysis for the built environment. Its Digital Twin technology facilitates the creation of resource-efficient, healthy and cost-effective built-environments of any size or purpose – supporting citizens, companies, campuses, communities, cities and even countries.

For additional information, please visit www.iesve.com. You can also follow IES on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn and check out DiscoverIES for all the latest news and content.

Contact (for journalist enquiries)
Vera Grishchenko
VeraGrishchenko@eaton.com
+44 7583090560