Your Guide to Shell Energy’s Smart Energy Hubs

Shell Energy’s Smart Energy Hub is an integrated energy efficiency solution that ensures your energy assets work together for next level energy optimisation and efficiency. But what exactly is a Smart Energy Hub, as defined by Shell Energy? And what benefits can implementing the solution bring large businesses over implementing discrete energy projects?

All these questions and more are answered below in our guide to Smart Energy Hubs.

What is a Shell Energy Smart Energy Hub?

Shell Energy’s Smart Energy Hub is a concept that integrates and co-optimises energy supply, generation, storage, and demand flexibility to meet your business objectives. It does this by combining multiple energy solutions to drive more significant energy efficiency gains and reduction of emissions and costs at your site.

These energy solutions can include a combination of some or all of the following:

• Utilisation of battery and thermal storage;
• installation or optimisation of solar PV systems;
• optimisation of energy-intensive equipment;
• automation for improved productivity;
• enabling energy load flexibility and demand response capabilities; and
• Incorporating electrical vehicle (EV) infrastructure.

What are the benefits of a Smart Energy Hub?

A Smart Energy Hub has a number of benefits for large businesses, including:
Optimising your existing (and future-planned) energy efficiency assets for greater cost savings
Leveraging the energy potential of your site to its full capacity and ensuring optimal performance
Providing a clear implementation plan to help your company achieve its sustainability targets

For many energy assets, optimising them to unlock full business value can be difficult in isolation. To unlock more significant energy efficiency gains and greater reduction of emissions and costs, energy assets need to be integrated and optimised, so they are working together as a whole.

For commercial and industrial businesses with large energy loads, choosing to work towards building a Smart Energy Hub is one way to ensure you’re maximising the benefits of your existing and future investments.

How does a Smart Energy Hub work?

The below diagram shows how Smart Energy Hubs come to life, from grid electricity supply to behind-the-meter solutions and market opportunities, as your energy assets come together to create one centralised hub for energy efficiency and cost savings:

Shell Energy Smart Energy Hubs in action: Chirnside Park

Shell Energy and The GPT Group partnered on a Smart Energy Hub at Chirnside Park Shopping Centre in Melbourne, comprising a 2-megawatt hour (MWh) battery energy storage system (BESS) coupled with a 650 kilowatt (kW) solar array, supported by our HVAC LoadFlex product.

The Chirnside Park Smart Energy Hub uses predictive technology that enables electricity demand reductions of peak demand loads during times of high demand, which also assists in lowering the total cost of energy for the asset.

With the installation of the Smart Energy Hub, Chirnside Park Shopping Centre became The GPT Group’s first Climate Active carbon-neutral certified shopping centre, that has reduced site energy demand by 70% during peak periods.