Building Green

Your author discusses new and emerging VT technologies to make buildings more environmentally friendly.

by Manish Mehan
photos courtesy of TKE

The concept of green buildings has always been associated with environmentally friendly, sustainable features such as green walls and solar panels. But, it is way more than that. An emerging trend in building and construction, green buildings aim to reduce energy consumption through sustainable and energy-saving design that includes energy-efficient equipment. With growing urbanization and vertical development of cities, sustainable living has become extremely important. Energy consumption is high in cities, with the significant source of consumption being buildings, manufacturing facilities and modes of transportation. In the face of global warming and pressing concerns about energy consumption, green building is becoming increasingly relevant to urban life.

Challenges to Green Buildings in India

A popular view against green buildings is that green buildings involve higher operation and maintenance costs compared to conventional buildings. The truth is different: By optimizing key systems such as lighting, air conditioning, electrical and vertical transportation (VT) systems, green buildings can, over the long term, help reduce energy consumption and operation costs, thanks to their higher operational efficiency.

Locally, the popularity of green building is still hindered somewhat by budget constraints of owners and developers, limited awareness of operation and maintenance requirements and, most importantly, a lack of awareness about the environmental and financial benefits green buildings can offer in the long term.

How Next-Generation Elevator Solutions Can Contribute to Green Building

Elevators allow cities to expand upward instead of outward, allowing us to effectively reduce urban sprawl and the associated negative impacts of traffic congestion, pollution and other key issues that are concerns for many Asia-Pacific countries.

Buildings are responsible for 40% of overall energy consumption, and approximately 10% of a building’s electricity is consumed by traditional elevators. This can be overcome with smarter and newer elevator technologies. Using TK Elevator’s (TKE) revolutionary TWIN elevator system, with two elevators operating independently in one shaft, as an example, VT system capacity can be increased significantly without the need for additional elevator shafts. The biggest advantage of TWIN is its ability to park one of the two cars while the other stays in operation. This means, when passenger volumes are low, very little energy is consumed by the non-moving cars. Additionally, TWIN can be equipped with energy-recovery devices that can feed roughly 30% of the energy back into a building’s power grid.

Gamechanger: Digital and Sustainable Mobility Solutions

Mobility solutions play a pivotal role in building a sustainable tomorrow. TKE’s solution for the future is MULTI, which allows the operation of multiple cabins in both horizontal and vertical directions and frees tall building design from the constraints imposed by traditional elevator systems. As the world’s first rope-free elevator system, MULTI gives architects the power to completely reshape our cities. It has the potential to not just connect floors, but also buildings and cities, as a more eco-friendly means of transportation. The focus of MULTI, and all our innovations, is on using the latest technologies to drive energy efficiency and minimize overall energy consumption of buildings.

In addition, all our elevators can be equipped with MAX, which provides the benefits of data analytics to facilitate predictive maintenance. MAX is a game-changing predictive and preemptive maintenance solution that extends remote monitoring capabilities to dramatically increase availability of existing and new elevators. Utilizing the power of Microsoft Azure IoT technology, MAX predicts maintenance issues before they occur, and empowers elevator engineers by flagging the need to replace components and systems before the end of their lifecycle.

Mobility solutions play a pivotal role in building a sustainable tomorrow.

Our AGILE Destination Control, based on Destination Selection Control (DSC) technology, also improves system efficiency and passenger experience by effectively shortening wait and travel times. Compared to conventional elevator control systems, AGILE DSC increases passenger handling capacity by up to 30%, minimizes passengers’ travel times to their destinations and reduces crowding in lift lobbies. Our DSC also allows for much more flexibility in elevator grouping, lift core layouts and overall building design.

Why Opt for Digital Elevator Technology

Here are a few benefits of opting for digital elevator technology:

• Reduce energy consumption. By optimizing key systems such as lighting, air conditioning, electrical and VT, green buildings can, over the long term, help reduce energy consumption and operations costs, thanks to higher operational efficiency.
• Reduce negative impacts of urban sprawl.
• Allow versatile elevator deployment. TKE’s next-generation TWIN elevator system has the advantages of flexible zoning by operating two cars independently. Its total weight is less, and it provides the added flexibility to park one of the cars during non-peak hours, which is very important for modern green buildings.
• Improve system efficiency and passenger experience, such as with the AGILE DSC.

Applications

Green building reduces the environmental impact of buildings by optimizing the use of energy, light and other resources to reduce consumption and minimize carbon footprint. Next-generation elevator solutions such as TKE’s TWIN and MULTI used and soon-to-be used in newly built skyscrapers and high-rises, can effectively reduce urban sprawl and its associated impacts. Older buildings can also be turned into more sustainable or “greener” ones by modernizing their VT systems. Digital solutions such as TKE’s MAX and AGILE DSC can also bring operational and energy efficiency benefits to older buildings by means of modernization.

In a nutshell, the concept of green building applies not only to new high rises and newly developed urban areas, but to all kinds of buildings and infrastructures, thereby extending the benefits of reduced environmental impact and enhancing the health and wellbeing of occupants of less developed and older communities.