Property Management – Shopping Mall

Energy Saving Innovations Pave the Way for Green Malls

​Environmental protection has always been a core mission of Hong Yip Service Company Limited (Hong Yip). The property management company strives to provide customers delightful shopping experiences as well as to uphold energy saving principles in the operation. Recently, Hong Yip adopted CLP’s Smart Enterprise service to reduce energy consumption in the office.

One of the shopping malls managed by Hong Yip, Tsuen Wan Plaza receives plenty of sunlight throughout the day. The team deployed glass walls to introduce natural light to the mall, thereby reducing the need for daytime lighting. Part of the glass walls also have automatic roller blinds that are programmed to close during the most intense periods of daylight; this reduces the cooling load of the chiller plants as well as saving on electricity.

To stay at the forefront of energy saving initiatives, Hong Yip has also introduced high-tech floor-cleaning robot. The robot operates when the mall is closed, saving energy and water since it requires zero lighting or air-conditioning and only uses one-third of the water for manual cleaning.

At the same time, the team is testing a new, auto-dimming LED lighting system in the mall’s car park. Energy saving mode is activated whenever an area is not in use, while the level of illumination increases as soon as motion is detected from a pedestrian or vehicle.

Commenting on these initiatives, Linda Leung, Deputy General Manager of Tsuen Wan Plaza, said: “By introducing innovative Smart Enterprise service and automated equipment to our mall, we have reduced our need for manual operation while minimising our energy consumption. We expect that these savings will open up even greater possibilities in the future.”

Effective Use of Meter Online Service for Greater Energy Savings

Next to Kwai Fong MTR station, the Metroplaza is a landmark shopping mall with over 200 stores, providing a wide range of products and services including a cinema, fitness centre and beauty salons.

As a large shopping mall, air-conditioning takes the major part in electricity consumption. Also, their management concerns about energy saving and environmental protection with the aim to reduce electricity consumption. Since their electricity bills are based on both demand charge and energy charge, the information from the 9-Day Regional Consumption Forecast of CLP’s Meter Online service helps Metroplaza to practise energy management.

Based on the humidity and ambient temperature from Hong Kong Observatory, Meter Online service will forecast the magnitude and occurring time of top three demands of each day in the next nine days. Metroplaza’s engineering team would adjust the central air-conditioning system to reduce energy consumption accordingly.

As Mr. Raymond Kwan, Senior Technical Services Manager of Metroplaza elaborates, "Without Meter Online service, it would require a lot of manpower and resource to collect and analyse the big data for planning and implementation of energy-saving measures. By using the 9-Day Regional Consumption Forecast of CLP’s Meter Online service, we have successfully saved over HK$10,000 in a month. No additional hardware investment is required. We have been using Meter Online service for nearly six years and we are very satisfied so far."

Optimising Customer Experience with Innovative Energy Saving System

Environmental protection and energy conservation has always been a key focus of Hong Yip Service Co. Ltd. Not only the awareness of environmental protection has been widely promoted, the concepts of green management and sustainable development are also implemented in the residential buildings and shopping malls. The Mikiki shopping mall located in San Po Kong, actively practises an energy management and adopts energy-efficient equipment. The mall strives to uphold its principle of environmental protection and energy conservation without sacrificing a pleasant shopping experience to its customers.

During the team meeting of Environmental Protection and Energy Conservation at Mikiki, the frontline staff voiced their concerns about the high temperature at the shopping mall’s car park, delivering discomfort experience for its customers, frontline and logistics staff. The property management team took immediate response to the problem by exploring a number of possible solutions. Through some environmental-friendly measures, the engineering team improved current facilities with the aim to enhance the car park comfort level.

Shortly thereafter, Paul of the engineering team exercised his creativity by initiating ‘cooling system device’ for the car park. Through collection of condensate water from air conditioning systems of the mall and associated with the fan, a simple cooling system device is ready to use. After the installation of the system, a drop of five degrees Celsius in the car park represented a significant improvement. Both frontline staff and customers responded with positive feedback that the car park is now cooler and more comfortable than before.

Most of the cooling device assembly units such as fan coils, pipes and water storage tanks etc. are actually discarded materials by other tenants. The mall can achieve significant cost reductions while setting up a good role model to implement recycling. Moving forward the team will continue to install cooling systems at other locations, with the aim to provide a more comfortable yet environmentally-friendly shopping environment to its customers.

Implementing Energy Conservation and Enhancing the Shopping Experience

Hong Kong is well known as a shopping paradise. In line with the trend towards energy conservation and emission reduction in recent years, many malls and shops have been adopting the CLP GREEN^PLUS programme for advice and support in addition to placing efforts on offering consumers the best mix of products and services, which has in turn enhanced energy efficiency and created a more comfortable and safer shopping environment.

Shopping malls and retail stores often have daily operating hours up to 12 hours, and the demand for energy is substantial. Many Hong Kong malls and shops improve energy efficiency through energy conservation measures, and have therefore enhanced their competitive advantages while working to establish an environment for sustainable development. The following companies are one of the walking examples in such aspect.

Optimising system to achieve power savings and reduce carbon emissions

Harbour City in Tsim Sha Tsui, one of the landmarks in Hong Kong, puts great efforts on promoting environmental protection and energy conservation information among customers and employees. Leveraging on CLP's support, the mall has gradually optimized its own systems and equipment, including the installation of solar power system as well as the upgrading of the thermal performance of its existing water-cooled air conditioners. In addition, Harbour City also switched to a heat-pump hot water system and installed 200 square meters of solar panels for the serviced Gateway Apartments at the top level to reduce energy consumption from the hot water system.

Mr. H.S.Ng, Senior Manager – Technical, Harbour City Estates Limited, revealed that solely for the optimisation of the water-cooled air conditioning system and the installation of heat pump system, about 5 million kWh of electricity is saved annually, and carbon emission is reduced by about 2950 tons. In addition, solar panels have also saved about 118,000 kWh of electricity and reduced more than 70 tons of carbon emission for the company.

"Energy conservation is a part of corporate social responsibility that will benefit the development of our next generation." Ng said. Though there may be challenges in the optimisation of systems and equipment, such as the need to avoid any impact on tenants and consumers throughout the engineering work, under CLP's support, all projects have been completed successfully. "Apart from the above hardware, CLP's Meter Online and Energy Audit services also help us with real-time monitoring to ensure that all energy is spent appropriately," Ng added.

Green Shopping Mall

CLP has been working closely with customers to enhance their energy performance. tmtplaza Phase I is an exemplifying case of successful collaboration. Located at 1 Tuen Shun Street, Tuen Mun, the Mall has been in operation for over 20 years. It consists of a five-storey shopping mall covering over 1,000,000 square feet. The Mall provides a wide spectrum of facilities ranging from shops, restaurant, cinema to car park.

For a long time, the chilled water of the air-conditioning system in the Mall was done by both air-cooled and water-cooled chillers with Primary Air Handling Unit (PAU) and Fan Coil Unit (FCU) distributing the fresh and conditioned air. With an aim to reduce energy consumption, tmtplaza sought support from CLP to identify energy-saving opportunities. The deterioration of the aged air-cooled chiller system was identified and recommendations were made to replace them with new and more energy-efficient water-cooled chiller system.

tmtplaza replaced the five existing units of 330TR air-cooled chiller and two units of 100TR air-cooled chiller with four units of 900TR water-cooled chillers together with modification of all headers. The improvement works were completed in early 2012. The new water-cooled chillers installed in Phase 1 helped tmtplaza save more than 4GWh electricity consumption annually and provides a better environment through reduced carbon dioxide emissions.

Additionally, tmtplaza Phase 1 takes the additional step of replacing the existing ceiling lights with LED lights to further reduce carbon dioxide emission.