Pictured above: KONE's DC lift system being installed at Wesleyan Assurance Head Office in Birmingham

Intelligent lift technology has trebled the energy efficiency of Birmingham's iconic Wesleyan Assurance Society Building and reduced its annual carbon emissions.

Lift and escalator specialist KONE has introduced state of the art Destination Control technology in place of the traditional hoisting system.  

The new gearless motor system not only saves 36 per cent of the energy the previous mechanism required, it also generates energy which can be used elsewhere in the building.  The result has been a significant reduction in the building's overall energy consumption.  

"Simply modernising rather than replacing old lifts can reduce energy consumption up to 70 per cent, and in this case the Destination Control System (DCS) was a most ideal option" confirms Jim Woolley, KONE UK business development manager. 

"This technology makes better use of lift journeys and hence saves energy on balance. When a lift uses a DCS, people entering a building select the level they would like to visit on a keypad.  

"The lift controller software then automatically groups the destination of each of the, say, three lifts to take passengers to their destinations in as few stops as possible. So those requiring floors six and seven could be directed to lift C, while those who punched in floors three, four or five would be directed to lift B. The result is fewer and more efficient lift journeys."

The system was installed based on figures assessed using the KONE Enercal tool. This calculates the energy consumption and annual electricity expenditure of the client's current equipment and compares it to that of the proposed modernised equipment, demonstrating to the customer the real savings both in electricity consumption and monetary value.

Eileen Smith, Building and Support Services Manager at Wesleyan added:  "KONE has maintained the lifts at our Birmingham head office for a number of years and we turned to them to create greater efficiency in terms of our lift operation.

"The team's solution was to modernise the three-car lift rather than replace it to gain maximum environmental impact with minimum financial outlay. To our surprise one of the biggest cost savings was made from changing the lighting from fluorescent tubes to LED spotlights."

The KONE DCS technology has been installed into recent landmark buildings in the West Midlands including the Severn Trent head office in Coventry, Colmore Plaza and the University of Birmingham Muirhead Tower.

KONE has recently opened a regional headquarters at the Birmingham Business Park and the firm celebrated its 100th anniversary in October 2010. It operates some 800 service centres in more than 50 countries and delivers approximately 50,000 new elevators and escalators annually. Its service base consists of 650,000 elevators and escalators and more than 270,000 industrial and pedestrian doors.