ABB drives halve energy costs at State Library of Victoria

Fifteen ABB low voltage alternating current drives have cut air conditioning and heating costs at the State Library of Victoria.

This is a saving worth $155,000 in reduced annual energy costs for the 150-year-old State Library of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia.

An energy appraisal of this space found significant energy savings were possible by replacing the existing flow control in the heating, ventilation and air conditioning system, which used throttling valves, with ABB variable speed drives.

The library has four water-cooled chillers with eight motors ranging from 15 to 55 kilowatts; five cooling tower fans with one 11 kW motor each; and two gas-fired heating boilers with one 22 kW and one 30 kW motor on the hot water circulation pumps.

By installing 15 ABB standard drives for HVAC, energy savings of between 30 and 60 percent have been achieved across the various applications.


“Working with energy efficiency can be a challenge in an old building,” says Mike Brown, facilities manager at the library. “No matter how hard we try to raise efficiency, it will never match a modern building. The library is 150 years old and heritage-listed. Its large halls with high ceilings make it difficult to air-condition. Some of the walls are a meter thick, which makes it hard to achieve the desired temperature."

“Under these conditions using AC drives is a useful way to save energy where we can. It also helps us control conditions accurately – the temperature needs to be controlled to 22 degrees and humidity to 50 percent to protect manuscripts, paintings and the two million books,” Brown explained.