Asteron Centre earns 5.5 Star energy rating

Wellington’s Asteron Centre - the city’s largest single office building - has earned a 5.5 Star base building energy rating from NABERSNZ after reducing its base building energy use annually to 46 kWh/m². Crown Building Performance Specification requirements for tenancies they occupy generally vary between 105 and 120 kWh/m².

NABERSNZ is a voluntary tool that measures an organisation’s actual energy use against factors such as building occupancy, number of computers and rentable area. Comparing this against other similar buildings and climate conditions provides 
a rating on a 6-star scale, which the organisation can use to understand, and then improve, its energy performance.

The 49,000 m² Asteron Centre is owned by Grant Corleison and Mark Dunajtschik and was designed by Warren and Mahoney, with all engineering consultancy services provided by Aurecon. Its energy savings were achieved with the assistance of Aurecon mechanical engineer Marcus Welby.

“The Asteron Centre was completed in 2010 and had been designed to ensure it was environmentally sustainable,” said Welby. “It already had a 5 Green Star office design rating, but the owners felt there was potential to make further savings. We monitored the building five days a week to look at what changes could be made.”

The building has a wide spectrum of energy-saving features, including rainwater harvesting, automatic dimming lighting when sufficient daylight is available, heat recovery chillers, high-performance glazing, hot water preheating from chiller waste heat, chilled beams and heat pump hot water cylinders. These features have made it the second New Zealand building to achieve a NABERSNZ rating of 5.5 stars out of 6, after Wellington’s Meridian Building.

“This award is great news for our tenants,” said Corleison. “The drastic savings we’ve achieved ultimately benefit the tenants who pay for their own consumption while we pay for the common areas. The lower we can get the energy consumption, the better it is for landlord and tenant.”

Corleison and Dunajtschik are currently developing the Hilton Hotel and Conference Centre opposite Te Papa. Aurecon will be working with the developers on the proposed project.