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Just how energy efficient is the venue of the United Nations Conference on Climate Change?

Buildings are the leading emitter of man-made CO2 – Bella Center in Copenhagen shows it doesn’t have to be that way.

The UN Conference of Parties (COP15) has a gargantuan task to accomplish this December. They must establish the policies to prevent catastrophic climate change before it’s too late. And while trying to get delegates from around the world to come to an agreement on how to drastically cut CO2 emissions, they will be standing inside the world’s greatest source of man-made greenhouse gases: a building. But the Bella Center in Copenhagen isn’t just any building.

The Bella Center is a shining example of how much room for improvement there is in our buildings today. Built in the 70’s, a time when fuel efficiency was not a priority, it’s energy efficiency was not optimal. With the scale of the climate change issue, and the international spotlight turning their way, the owners of the facility decided to show the world that buildings can also be the biggest source of Co2 reductions. It is simply a matter of being motivated and using the right technology. The Bella Center’s ambitious retrofit project led to the reduction of thousands of tons of CO2.

It was a great honor for the Bella Center to be selected as the venue for COP15. But it was also a great responsibility. “It’s easily the most significant event we’ve hosted here," said Kristian Ortving, Bella Center Technical Director. “But we also felt a responsibility to set an example for the world leaders attending the conference and the people around the world following it. There’s no more time for excuses, we have to make buildings much more efficient now."

Changing the way they run their facilities was no mean task. The Bella Center is the largest conference center in Scandinavia with 123,000 m₂ of exhibition hall space, all fully air conditioned, and a total capacity of 20,000 event attendees. To help make the facility-wide upgrade, the Bella Center contacted Schneider Electric, a world leader in providing energy efficiency solutions for buildings.

Many of the Bella Center’s technical installations were modernized, including its ventilation and cooling systems, 107 circulation pumps and a couple thousand light fittings. They also installed 5,268 energy-efficient light tubes.

Automated heating and lighting control systems now continually adjust to fluctuations in both indoor and outdoor conditions, ensuring they only consume as much energy as necessary. Not only does this save on CO2 emissions, but it also reduces operating costs and creates a more comfortable climate inside the building, so the world leaders at COP15 can stay focused and productive.

Energy reductions were also realized simply by changing some habits of the staff. They were educated on how much energy each of their day-to-day tasks were burning and what little things they could do to use less. Each of those little things adds up to a lot when the whole team is pulling together.

A building management system was installed to monitor the Bella Center’s electricity consumption and generate hourly reports. With this data, trouble areas can be identified early and more and more ways of increasing efficiency can be found in the future.

“The project gives us a reasonable CO2 reduction for every kroner invested, and it will have paid for itself in terms of cost savings by 2016 to say northing of the benefits to the environment. Bella Center is a good example of why there’s really no good reason not to upgrade to more efficient systems," said Ortving. To learn all the details of the retrofit project, download the case study here.

The Bella Center upgrade prevents about 1,150 tons of CO2 from being emitted every year. That equals about 7 million kilometers on the road in your car. Now just imagine how much could be reduced if every building underwent such a project. World leaders at COP15 and building owners and architects around the world will hopefully get the message and take action. If that happens we could turn building from the world’s biggest CO2 producers to the world’s biggest CO2 reducers.

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