Case Study: Manufacturing Plant
Blackmores Campus, Sydney

Cogent Energy has designed and installed a state of the art trigeneration plant at the new Blackmores’ head office site in Warriewood on Sydney’s northern beaches.

The site is the headquarters for Blackmores’ Australian and international business and comprises of commercial office space, warehouse and production facilities.

Building Owner:

Blackmores

Location:

Warriewood, Sydney

Building Description:

Light Industrial, warehouse/production facility

Building Size:

14,000 sqm

Plant Operational Date:

1 September 2008

Tri-generation Configuration

The Blackmores campus trigeneration plant comprises of 2 x 386 kW MTU Series 400 engines that are connected in parallel to the grid. One engine is coupled to 292 kW Thermax exhaust absorption chiller, while the other engine is coupled to a 461 kW Thermax single-double effect exhaust & engine jacket chiller. Plate heat exchangers provide 460 kW of heating capacity for the building space, lap pool and production heating. The absorption chillers and heat exchangers are fully integrated into the building heating, chilled and condenser water systems.

The plant is set up to operate in grid parallel import and island mode and operates automatically during the peak and shoulder demand periods or during grid outages for emergency backup.

Plant Capacities

Peak Electrical:

772 kW at 0.8 power factor

Peak Cooling:

600 kW

Peak Heating:

460 kW

Energy Efficiency:

80% Overall Efficiency (estimated) when compared to grid electricity

Benefits

Reliability:

Highly reliable parallel tri-gen solution with grid parallel import

Energy Efficiency:

5 star NABERS and 5 star Green Star for office space

Backup:

Provides emergency backup if grid connection fails.

Sustainability:

Estimate savings of up to 2,200 tonnes of CO2 per annumi