Special architectural conditions and needs are common in almost all shopping centres. The main retrofit drivers for these special conditions include

1. The need to improve the indoor environmental quality and functionality
2. The requirements to enhance the customer’sexperience
3. The requirement to reduce the energy usage of the centre
4. The requirement to optimize the building operation and maintenance costs
5. The requirement to reduce the environmental, social, and economic impact of the shopping centre

A shopping centre is a building, or a complex of buildings, designed and built to contain many interconnected activities in different areas. Next,to public spaces, there are areas related to workspaces, with different use and location and according to the shopping centre type.

Shopping centres have different opening hours and entrances than the shopping centre. The public occupancy profile of a typical shopping centre various through the weekdays and weekends making environmental controls for the centres heating and cooling systems important in theirflexibility and turndown efficiency.

Today, in addition to the mere commercial function, a shopping centre responds to several customer needs: it exhibits recreational attractions and modern amenitiesand is more commonly visited for eating-out motives than for buying daily needs.

The retail tenant mix and atmosphere have the highest relative importance, together with convenience, refreshments and location. The majority of European shopping centres are already built, but there is still a huge potential for energy savings due to the practice of regular retrofitting and redesign.

This state of constant change offers regular opportunities to improve the technical systems, such as lighting, ventilation, the building envelope and monitoring systems, and more. Every retrofitting involves a careful analysis of the building peculiarities. The use of building energy simulations can help evaluate the balance between gains and losses, and the energy uses, as well as test design options and solution-sets: i.e. external wall insulation combined with natural ventilation, day-lighting and lighting controls.

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Energy savings in shopping centres

1. Innovations for energy savings in shopping centres included the application of a multi-functional climate adaptive façade. system, multi-purpose coatings and insulation, as well as potential applications for the strategic integration of vegetation to reduce heating and cooling demand.
2. The application of smart natural ventilation and cooling to reduce the use of energy-intensive climate control systems.
3. The application of geothermal heat pumps and heat-recovery technologies to reuse waste heat.
4. The addition of LED lighting systems.
5. Enabling a greater use of natural light through windows, skylights and solar tubes.
6. The application of renewable energy generation, incorporating solar collectors, photovoltaic panels and innovative battery systems to help meet the building’s energy needs.
7. The installation of an intelligent building energy management system to enable fine-tuned control of all systems to reduce energy consumption and operational costs.
8. In many shopping centres the outer surfaces are mostly made of steel and glass and hence a large part of the energy savings may involve the envelope energy efficiency as the glass surfaces produce significant solar.

Please find below our energy efficiency services. Contact us for more information.