The High Street is under pressure as never before, with rising energy costs and changing consumer behaviour, so what can retailers do to minimise energy use without harming customer comfort?
The retail sector has faced tough times over the past few years, with businesses facing challenges from online shopping and lower in-store footfall, uncertain economic conditions and rising energy bills.
A major part of staying afloat currently has to be lowering your outgoings wherever possible, so just where can hard-pressed shop owners look to reduce running costs?
Well, your HVAC would be a good place to start.
HVAC, or Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning is a major part of any retail experience these days as keeping your customers comfortable while in your store, is one way to ensure they stay longer and hopefully make more purchases.
The growth in online shopping is redefining retail, so ensuring an easy, comfortable and pleasurable in-store experience becomes even more important to the bricks and mortar sector.
Once you’ve got your customers inside, you need an environment that helps and encourages them to linger longer.
Yet keeping a shopfloor at a constant temperature can be costly with rising energy bills so the very first thing businesses should do, is look at areas where energy is being wasted.
Look for the simple, straightforward things that can make a difference right now
James Harman Business Development Manager
Take stock
That means knowing what equipment you have, where it is, and what it is meant to be doing.
All of this can be a very simple to check and can make a major difference to monthly energy bills. Do you have radiators and air conditioning for example, and are there times when both are on?
In Britain, we can have all four seasons in one day, so we’ve probably all seen situations where the heating has been on in the morning and any cooling comes on when it gets warmer in the afternoon.
However, unless someone remembers to switch off the heating (or you have programmes to automate this), then you might as well burn bank notes in front of your customers to keep them warm.
Air conditioning for example, should be fully programmable so that it doesn’t come on until the space reaches a certain temperature, so you’re not using energy unless you need to.
A lot of people also don’t realise that air conditioning can be used to heat a room, blowing out hot air instead of cold, so using the system’s programme can work this way, warming the room when it falls below a certain temperature.
Not only will this automation of both heating and cooling make the system more efficient, it could even remove the need to switch on the gas radiators.
A quick look at the control system for any air conditioning equipment will help determine how much can be automated but if this doesn’t help then the maintenance team or company should be able to advise you.
Take back control
The programming of the air conditioning will definitely help you find areas of wastage and gain better control of your energy use and therefore your monthly bills.
We’ve seen examples where a central facilities manager has set temperatures for a network of stores to maximise efficiency and minimise costs, but where staff in each store override the controls to put on the heating or cooling whenever they feel like it.
Of course, staff comfort is important in any businesses, but we all know individuals that need things super-hot, or icy cold, so it’s far better to find a common middle ground that appeals to more people (and especially your customers).
Control systems are available that will provide the head office with full remote access to help limit temperatures to a sensible fixed range, so both staff and customers are kept comfortable without wasting energy.
Planning ahead
In addition to looking for the simple, straightforward things that can make a difference right now, HVAC equipment such as air conditioning can be an excellent source of energy savings and carbon reduction if older equipment is reaching the end of its life and needs to be replaced.
This will take more planning to budget and schedule so that the retail operation isn’t disrupted but modern systems offer much more efficiency, more advanced control and lower carbon than previous models, so they really can make a difference to operational costs, carbon footprints and corporate aspirations.
Retail outlets come in many shapes and sizes, and your store may well have changed since the original system was installed so any new specification must focus on issues such as ceiling heights, footfall (including peaks) and loads from lighting.
Good lighting is critical for retailers, as it sets off products to the best advantage and helps to attract customers. However, lighting contributes to heating loads even with the switch to LED lighting, which is underway across the retail sector.
And if we add the UK’s increasingly hot summers and heatwave occurrences, then cooling in-store becomes more crucial than ever.
Maintaining an advantage
Last year the retail sector accounted for almost 5% of the UK's total economic output at £112.8 billion and there are around 3 million jobs in retail, so this is a vitally important part of UK society, which has an essential role to play in helping the nation get to net zero.
UK retailers are the second-largest market for air conditioning systems in the UK, after office buildings, because comfortable environments for shoppers and staff is paramount to the retail experience. Air conditioning systems must therefore be robust, delivering reliable and problem-free cooling and heating.
One area that can be overlooked is regular maintenance as this can ensure that even the oldest systems are working to peak performance.
Reviewing your maintenance regimes may be the quickest and most straightforward way of reducing energy costs and carbon emissions. Well maintained equipment will perform better and help reduce the amount of energy consumed.
Our Service and Maintenance teams can support any in-house engineering and facilities teams from commissioning to helping plan for equipment replacements.
James Harman is Business Development Manager for Mitsubishi Electric
