26 Dec Safeguarding history
Siemens is modernising locations of Australia’s largest museum organisation ensuring history doesn’t fade into the past
Museums Victoria in Melbourne, the largest public museum organisation in Australia, attracts approximately 2.5 million visitors each year. The government of the State of Victoria commissioned Siemens to perform a total upgrade of the building management, lighting, water and cooling systems and now its six locations are getting fit for the future.
The heart of the organisation is the Melbourne Museum – at 80,000 m2 the largest museum in the southern hemisphere. The four exhibit properties and the two climate-controlled storage facilities of Museums Victoria house a grand total of 17 million objects.
The museum organisation falls under the auspices of the government of the southern Australian state of Victoria. Its Greener Government Buildings project pursues a green strategy to improve energy efficiency in existing government buildings as well as reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The success of the modernisation concept is already tangible: Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions have fallen by 35 percent. Siemens anticipates a savings of 4,590 tons of CO2 by the end of the contract term. Water consumption dropped by six percent. In addition, the cost of utilities fell by 32 percent, an amount equivalent to the electricity consumption of 1,264 average households per year.
The savings are the result of a full range of complementary measures. The building management system at the Melbourne Museum was upgraded to the Desigo CC building management platform supporting 3,000 data points. It consolidates the various building disciplines, which can be visualised and controlled via a user interface and can integrate some or all disciplines ranging from building automation (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) to security and fire safety to lighting.
Given the high volume of visitors and the extreme heat of the Australian summer, the building management platform has ample opportunity to live up to its full potential.
SIEMENS