Cutting costs - Midsummer Place Shopping Centre has cut its energy consumption by 15 per cent over 12 months. How has this been achieved?
Published: 11 November, 2010
The saving was achieved as a result of a national carbon reduction initiative by the retail centre’s owner Legal & General Property through a 12-month programme started in January 2009, using Power Efficiency’s Building Operational Performance Improvement service.
This included an energy survey, monitoring and reporting of weekly and monthly energy profiles and a monthly engineering review of operations, leading to significant operational performance improvements.
Midsummer Place is a two-floor shopping centre in the centre of Milton Keynes with a total floor area of 430,000 sq ft and more than 50 well known high street brands including Zara and Topshop to name just two. The centre’s standard trading hours from Monday to Wednesday are 9.30am to 6pm, with an hour extension for the rest of the week.
Working with Power Efficiency, Midsummer Place achieved an annual cost saving of £24,000 with a reduction of 390,000 kWh or 210 tonnes of CO2.
Substantial reductions in lighting costs were achieved by adapting existing control systems to meet specific requirements, including when parking areas were being used and necessary lighting levels for public access to throughways.
Power Efficiency’s service includes a site visit and monthly detailed reporting based on energy consumption by date and time of day, with consultancy that looks at where energy is being consumed in a building or estate to find sources of unnecessary consumption.
Among the changes made by Midsummer Place that had an impact on the energy savings was a reduction in the usage of lighting after business hours with all mall and car park lights turned off one hour after Midsummer Place closes, except while cleaning is taking place on the mall.
And lighting on the Boulevard is now turned to 25 per cent from one hour after Midsummer Place closes. This level is still considered sufficient for both cleaning and public access. Additionally, the start time of the escalators is now delayed by one hour in the morning.
But none of these changes require manual intervention, because the Building Management System has been set up to adopt these changes automatically.
“This is the most challenging aspect of reducing consumption,” says Bobby Collinson, managing director of Power Efficiency, “as it requires a detailed understanding of the energy using estate when hundreds, even thousands of devices are in use, and the amount of energy they consume. A simple example of this would be escalators running beyond the closing time of a building.”
Andy Banks, finance director of Legal & General Property, explains: “None of the changes that have been made are the result of replacing equipment, such as heating. Rather it has been achieved through a better understanding of where we consume energy and changing habits where necessary.”
Power Efficiency’s Collinson adds: “Looking for the best energy prices is only one part of the story to reducing energy costs. Through detailed analysis of where energy is being consumed significant savings can be made.
“For organisations such as shopping centres that are likely to be participants in the Government’s CRC Energy Efficiency Scheme, this will be a key element in achieving and maintaining a good position in the public league tables in the years ahead.”
