Venue Electricity Consumption

[Sam Cuthbert]

Hi all,
I'm working on a new 3 screen cinema project and finding it hard to estimate electricity consumption for my financial planning.
Here in the UK the energy costs are crippling businesses small and large so it's important to have vaguely accurate costings.
I've reached out to a few venues that friends operate but they are leased with the landlord taking meter reads and paying the bills.
How have others approached this task?
Many thanks,
Sam.

[Leo Enticknap]

When we were trying to persuade a customer to upgrade amplifiers from 30-year old QSC MX1500as to new LEAs, I put a cheap kWH meter (one of these) on one of each for a month to demonstrate the power efficiency gain. You know what the electricity supplier charges per kWH, and so from there can calculate a device's power costs. Even if you don't have the ability to do this experiment directly, the spec sheets of pretty much everything in your booth will tell you their typical power draw in watts. Using that, how many hours a day the equipment will be operating, and how many screens you have, it's straightforward math(s) to establish what the power costs will be, and if it's worth the cost of additional technology (e.g. automated power sequencers that turn your amps, processor, etc. off at night) to drive that power consumption down.

[Steve Guttag]

Leo, were the MXa misbehaving? They are definitely "long-in-the-tooth." Just curious if this sale was strictly on an energy conservation or were they to be replaced anyway due to declining reliability due to age.

[Leo Enticknap]

Declining reliability due to age. Capacitors are bursting on some, XC-1 cards are going out on others, etc. etc. All of these amps are early 1990s vintage, and so this 'plex is gradually upgrading them as the budget allows. We now have a few OK ones to support the remaining screens that were retired during the upgrade process, so the pace of that upgrading will likely slow a bit now. With the LEAs in use, there is about a 40% power saving compared to the old QSCs.

[Carsten Kurz]

Energy consumption varies so greatly between different venues. e.g. our's is an old large building, we are not running any HVAC. Some cinemas use HVAC for auditoriums, some for booths, some need to cool windowed lobbies during the summer. Some operate cafe or bar, coolers, etc.
You would probably try to find a site that is 'similar' to the one you are planning. Since the recent energy cost increases, I have seen quite a few projects for energy accounting in cinemas being setup in germany, but I don't think they have already acquired solid numbers yet. I can tell you exactly what's on our yearly electricity and gas bill, since it's very straight for us, but, I doubt it's useful for you.

[Frank Cox]

For me, at least, the cost of operating the cinema equipment doesn't seem to be a big factor in the amount of electricity that I use. I hadn't thought of it this way before, but I just looked at my power bills for January through March of 2020 (during the big shutdown) and I don't see them being vastly less than the bills for other periods. Maybe double digit savings; certainly not hundreds.

[Steve Guttag]

With some of the newer amplifiers, with them being more energy efficient, they can also dump less heat into their space (getting more of the power to the speakers they drive) and it can have the effect of lessening the load on the HVAC system in summer time.

Naturally, the impact in a single will seem less severe than a 10-plex where all of the savings are multiplied out.

[Marcel Birgelen]

While your equipment will surely add to the bill, the biggest energy costs for most cinemas are heating and cooling costs and it's very hard to give any quantifyable numbers without specifics about the building itself, the sizes of the rooms, etc.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

I brought up the power savings way back when the SX-3000 came out. A 12 screen with 50 watt servers vs. running a dozen 300 watt servers. Several who have posted in this thread, back then, shot down that the power savings didn't matter.... Kind of interesting how their opinions have changed today

[Stefan Scholz]

These are points, and Marc is right on the power savings of IMS over Server/ IMB in the past. I just got complaints on the prolonged boot time, but, that's 45 Watts consumed over 300 Watts, mainly taking into account, there's no real "server grade" mainboard, 2.5" SSDs instead of 3.5" HDDs, and no real CPU, just a Raps Pi or Atom instead.
The main consumers in theatres, beside the big ones A/C, meanig heating in winter and cooling/ dehumidification during summer seasons, are those, you don't see. There are ineffective motor pumps in A/C and heating systems, that draw 24/7 power. Example from my house, a 3 phase 400 Watt motor pump vs modern super hi efficiency pump drawing 26 Watts, for the same task.
Those are refrigerators and freezers with glass fronts or even open accessible storage, those are efficiency class "Z" over the ones with an insulated door, being class A. Those are soda chillers, corn warmers, etc, all the gear running long time without proper heat insulation.
And yes, modern IMS and new amplifiers are way more efficient, and can save a kilowatt hour per hour in total per screen. RGB Lasers are also helping, with around 10 Lumens per Watt in (theatrically unwanted) Hi-Brightness lens mode, it's about 3 x what conventional lamp units do deliver. Considering around 3000 operating hours in a normal theatre per year, you can calculate the savings. Still, in the end, neither hall lights or projection and sound are the real consumers. The multitude of small 24/7 consumers is, what adds to the bill. Not only my mentioned concession equipment, A/C pumps, but also permanent safety lighting (if still based on incandescent bulbs), IT equipment (older switches draw a lot more power), phone systems, office equipment in standby should be considered and researched thoroughly.