Case Study: Shedd Aquarium achieves 50% energy reduction with Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure Building solution

EcoStruxure Building Solution helps to create and maintain an environment where people connect to animals

Shedd Aquarium, a 422,000–480,817 sq. ft. landmark in Chicago that houses more than 32,500 aquatic animals and draws nearly 2 million visitors annually, faced the challenge of dramatically reducing energy use across diverse aquatic and building systems. In 2013 the aquarium named Schneider Electric as its energy management partner to deploy EcoStruxure Building solutions (including EcoStruxure Building Advisor and EcoStruxure Building Operation) to meet an ambitious goal of cutting energy consumption by 50% by 2020.

Schneider Electric implemented an EcoStruxure-based solution—adding variable frequency drives, extensive submetering, 4,500 monitoring points, a 256 kW turnkey solar installation (913 panels), and cloud-hosted EcoStruxure Building Advisor that ingests data every five minutes for fault detection and analytics. The deployment enabled ComEd MBCx compliance and rebates, produced $8,363 in verified energy cost avoidance in the first two months, prioritized measures with estimated dollar returns, and put Shedd Aquarium on track for the targeted 50% energy reduction.

Shedd Aquarium

Bob Wengel

Vice President of Facilities