World-class comfort at a lower cost – when you get the maths right
Green Hall Business Center
Green Hall Business Center is a high-end office complex in Vilnius, Lithuania. This prestige building was planned in the early 2000s to stand out from the crowd with its exceptional architecture, state-of-the-art climate control and low energy consumption. A chilled beam climate system, which at the time was a breakthrough solution in Lithuania, was initially chosen and construction began in 2008. Then the financial crisis struck...
Office and commercial property with double glazed façades and automatic shutters that enhance comfort levels and reduce energy consumption. 12 shops and high-end offices with a floor space of 10,800 m2
Swegon’s solution for offices, including 25 GOLD units and 480 chilled beams and comfort modules.
It’s easy to just look at the price tag
With its finances under strain, the investor felt that the climate beam system was too expensive and decided to opt for a cheaper fan coil system instead. At this point, Swegon offered to redo its calculations and used ProClim to calculate the cooling requirement for the building as a whole. The results now showed a dry cooling output of 45 W/m2 and not 80 W/m2 which was the previous calculation for the project. How could the first calculation have been so wrong?
It requires expertise to get the calculations right
The first calculation had failed to take the properties of the windows into account and was not based on experience of designing buildings with double glazed façades and automatic exterior shutters. With the new, correct calculation, the difference in price between fan coil and climate beams became negligible, and it was decided to accept the original system proposed by Swegon.
The best solution for the client
In this case, 33 individually controllable climate beams were used instead of 18 fan coils. Not having fans, beams offer numerous benefits over fan coils. There is no condensation, no noise and they consume less energy. Moreover, they offer greater flexibility when dividing spaces into separate zones.
Swegon was chosen as the supplier ahead of stiff competition. Partly because Swegon was able to deliver and be responsible for the overall solution (everything from air handling units, climate beams, condensation protection and dehumidification, to flexible operation and maintenance) and partly because of Swegon’s total conviction that the climate beams really were the optimal solution. In Lithuania in those days, they did not believe that climate beams could do the job, because of the humidity, the price level and the limited capacity of the units. Nowadays, they understand what benefits climate beams offer.
Pleasing results for the investor – and the tenants too
Supported by its expertise and commitment to client service, Swegon pushed hard to deliver the solution that proved to be best for everyone. In the aftermath of the financial crisis, only 60% of the office space was leased. One of the tenants during that period was Barclays, which insisted on the highest standards of comfort and workplace environment. In 2017, Barclays Technology Center was leasing 90% of the available space.