Ampere Building at La Défense (SOGEPROM)

Category: Building

Location: Paris, France

Renovated by the real estate company SOGEPROM, the Ampere Building is a 10-floor office building built in 1985 in the business district La Défense. It underwent a complete renovation and modification to became a sustainable construction.

The contribution of the project ELSA comprises an electrical storage out of a 22kWh Kangoo 2nd life batteries (DT3) (first phase) and a 88kWh Kangoo 2nd life batterie (DT5) (second phase) and a Building Energy Management System (BEMS).

Additionally, the office building is equipped with

a Carrier HVAC including chiller, AHU and Fan Coil Units
a connection to the heating and cooling distribution network of La Defense
solar panels
6 OTIS Gen2 ReGen (regenerative elevators)
30 recharging spots for a fleet of EV for employees
LiFi modulated LED light to transmit information in Ampere E+ rooms
BioOrg system to clean up harmful and pollution in buildings

UTRC BEMS is installed to optimally coordinate local generation, storage and loads and provide services to grid, including peak shaving, energy arbitrage, demand response.

In 2017, the Ampere Building won the international Green Solutions Awards in the category "Smart Building". The winner were presented on November 15th in Bonn, during the COP23. More information on the website of the award.

Interviewing the UTRC team at the Ampere Building

United Technologies Research Centre Ireland, Ltd. (UTRC-I) is one of the ELSA partners, and is responsible for the development and demonstration of advanced Building Energy Management Systems (BEMS) and middleware for optimizing the electrical generation, storage and consumption in two ELSA demo sites: Ampére building in Paris (France), and Gateshead College in Sunderland (UK).

What is the special focus of the ELSA pilot site at Ampere Building?

The primary focus of the ELSA project at Ampere building is to reduce the amount of power/energy being imported from the electrical grid. The building hosts several tenants as well as commercial activities that create a significant power demand. All the devices involved in determining the building power consumption are constantly monitored and those data are used to coordinate local renewable energy resources (photovoltaic panels installed on the top roof) with the ELSA battery energy storage system. This coordination allows us to minimise the amount of power/energy imported from the grid, while ensuring quality energy supply for all building services.

You are trialling the application of the ELSA battery storage system for a 10-floor office building in the business district La Défense. Which services is the ELSA battery storage system providing at Ampere Building?

The services at the Ampere building are provided through what we call the ELSA Building Energy Management System (EBEMS). This element, which sits on top of the ELSA battery storage system, is the algorithmic intelligence enabling services such as:

Peak shaving - reducing the energy import during times of high grid demand
Energy arbitrage with time-variant energy price profiles
Automated Demand Response services (emulated)

Energy market participation (cost minimization)
Power flexibility
Increase of local sources consumption

A demonstration of the scalability and plug-and-play nature of the ELSA battery storage system will be provided by increasing the current storage size from 22kWh to 88kWh.

What are the long-term benefits you expect from installing a second life battery storage system?

The presence of the ELSA storage system together with the EBEMS, will bring many great benefits in the long term. First, we expect a substantial decrease in power consumption costs. Also this technology will equip the building to participate within emerging energy markets driven by Automated Demand Response (ADR) requests. Finally, we consider the ELSA solution coupled with EBEMS to be a breakthrough for the application of second life batteries within commercial buildings. This example will serve as a model for future innovations in this field.