Increasing headcount, committing to a CSR policy, or modernizing premises… There are many reasons why organizations need to renew their real estate assets. That’s the adventure that employees at CARL Berger-Levrault’s Limonest (69) site experienced during the construction of a new building that is both sustainable and intelligent. Here’s a look back at the thinking that went into the project from the outset, and the rewarding results, supported by eco-management assisted by our AI and IIoT platform BLPredict…
The challenge: combining comfort and energy savings
It’s been almost 10 years since CARL Berger-Levrault identified the need for a larger building, to keep pace with its internal growth dynamic. The ambition behind the construction of this new 2295m2 building in Limonest (69) was twofold:
- welcome all staff, as this is the group’s second major site after Labège (31)
- set up the datacenter under optimum conditions of reliability, speed and data security
And all this with one essential guideline in mind: to combine comfort and energy savings within the building!
The RTE 2012 standard for a stable and resilient national power system
The RTE 2012 standard (Référentiel Technique d’Exploitation) is a set of regulations drawn up by Réseau de Transport d’Électricité (RTE) in France. It is part of the energy transition and aims to promote the integration of renewable energies, energy efficiency and the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the electricity sector. It therefore aims to guarantee the safety and performance of the electricity network, by ensuring compliance with directives concerning network planning, construction, operation and maintenance, as well as safety protocols and operating procedures.
To meet these environmental challenges, it was decided to place the Datacenter at the heart of the CARL Berger-Levrault building. The automation system, an EBI – Intelligent Building Management System, distributes the hot air produced by the Datacenter throughout the building to meet thermal comfort thresholds.
Through its primary use, the Datacenter then becomes the building’s major heating plant throughout the winter, switching to Free Cooling mode for 70% of the year!
HQE certification: recognition of our environmental commitment
The efforts made by Michel Cachon, project manager for the CARL Berger-Levrault energy-intelligent building, have been rewarded with the HQE (Haute Qualité Environnementale) label. This French certification system by Certivéa aims to encourage the design, construction and operation of sustainable, environmentally-friendly buildings, while promoting responsible practices in the construction sector.
This positive assessment recognizes the environmental performance of the Limonest building over its entire life cycle. In our case, the focus is more specifically on criteria such as eco-construction, eco-management and hygrothermal and visual comfort.
Eco-management assisted by BLPredict
By connecting our BLPredict intelligent equipment management platform to the CARL Source CMMS, the aim was to obtain a number of dashboards and indicators. This made it possible to manage the Datacenter, the building’s central energy hub, directly and on a daily basis. It was also possible to monitor warning systems and diagnose and identify any inappropriate behavior or malfunctions.
And the benefits are convincing:
- Improving employee comfort
- 15% reduction in energy consumption 2023
- Controlling energy bills
It’s thanks to these various indicators and the alerts we’ve received that the system is operating at optimum efficiency, with minimum energy consumption and optimum heating of the building.
Michel Cachon, Information Systems Manager, in charge of CARL Berger-Levrault’s DataCenter operations
All these long-term actions are considerably improving the building’s overall energy performance, with the Datacenter’s PUE falling from 1.22 in 2022 to 1.14 in 2023.
*PUE: Power Usage Effectiveness, the indicator used to measure energy efficiency.
To find out more...
To find out more about the Berger-Levrault Group’s decarbonization initiatives, please consult thecomplementary article.
