efficient heating, ventilation and air-conditioning systems, CEETRUS have cut down their costs by 20–30% on average. “These resources could be used for other things, which would increase the efficiency factor of all utility systems of the buildings”, the company says.
Globus hypermarkets have shared their saving records. Thanks to introducing power-efficient CO₂ freezers, the company saves 83 kilowatt-hours compared to the time when it was using
Freon R507 freezers. Besides, the company is looking forward to installing solid-state lighting systems to start saving 7–12% of electricity.
Garant-Invest Finance and Industrial Corporation Ltd. uses solid-state lighting for signs and outside advertising in their projects. In addition, they have installed dimming solid-state lighting, which change their brightness depending on the daylight. As a result, the savings made up to 70% compared to gas discharge and mercuric lamps. As for heat recovery ventilation systems, they help to save up to 70% of coolant flow while emitting less and reducing the network load. In addition, all their buildings operate on digital technologies, which provide remote access to the buildings to manage their parameters, and in the long run, this helps to optimize the performance of the equipment and increase its lifespan by cutting down energy consumption by 15%. Besides, climate control allows for more comfortable conditions for their visitors.
Ingka Centers also told us about their benefits of using green technologies in the projects. “The ventilation in shopping centers is one of the most energy consuming systems, yet in our MEGA malls we use supply and exhaust ventilation with CO₂ sensors, which automatically supplies more air when a certain level is reached, thus enabling us to create a better environment while saving the energy,” says Sofia Trofimova, General Director of Ingka Centers in Russia. “As for MEGA Kazan, it uses renewable energy sources, such as solar panels, which are now responsible for producing 1% of all the energy of this mall.”
Are tenants and visitors after the green?
Tenants considering green technologies as a deciding vote do not yet exist, experts believe. A lot of emphasis is put on this factor these days, but tenants are not yet willing to pay for it. For them the location, format and people flow are the priority. At least, when we talk about shopping centers.
When making a choice, tenants look at different factors, including the green certificates, yet not for all businesses, it is a main criterion, says Sophia Trofimova. “This being said, the service fee could be lower due to lower energy consumption, and working conditions are better, which could improve the performance of the staff,” she notices.
Today, what we are witnessing is a growing demand for green technologies from our visitors. By popular demand in all our Malls we have installed containers to collect used batteries, which we later send to recycling centers. Besides, to save energy, and as a result to decrease the amount of harmful emissions, we have introduced solid-state lighting in all our malls,” shares his experience Kirill Stepanov, Operations Director at Malltech. Moreover, there was another change initiated by the developer at every project — waste sorting. They sort their waste and send it to recycling centers. Another thing, which is also worth mentioning, is a free charging station for electric cars they opened at Planeta Shopping Center in Ufa, and it is very popular with local drivers.