Shopping malls play a major role in Hong Kong's daily life, and improving their energy efficiency can significantly reduce carbon emissions. CLPe,Henderson Land Group (Henderson Land) and Chinachem Group (Chinachem) are teaming up for the first time to launch Cooling as a Service (CaaS) at Flora Plaza in Fanling, which is expected to save 500,000 kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity a year by installing a new cooling system. Flora Plaza is a private housing estate and shopping mall jointly developed by Henderson Land and Chinachem in the heart of Fanling's residential area.

Its two-storey shopping mall covers an area of more than 150,000 square feet and has over 100 shops offering a diverse range of services to cater for the needs of residents in North District for almost 30 years. CLPe will provide funding along with design and engineering work for a new air-cooled chiller system under a 15-year Build, Own, Operate, and Transfer (BOOT) agreement. It will receive a monthly service fee from Henderson Land for the duration of the contract period.

The current cooling system at Flora Plaza has been in use since the mall first opened. CLPe will replace the nine condenser-less chillers with four air-cooled chillers, enhancing energy efficiency and saving space by integrating refrigeration and heat dissipation systems in one unit with a Variable Speed Drive function. The total capacity of the new chiller will also be enhanced to meet the mall's future business development needs.

The new system will be equipped with the artificial intelligence (AI) management system PlantPRO, which continuously collects and analyses operational data and automatically adjusts the cooling system according to external factors such as indoor temperature to create an optimal indoor environment. It is expected that the new system will improve energy efficiency by 50% and reduce its electricity consumption by 15%, saving around 500,000 kWh of electricity a year, equivalent to the annual electricity consumption of around 160 three-member households or a reduction of around 200 tonnes of carbon emissions. Buildings account for 90% of Hong Kong's total electricity consumption and produce more than 50% of the city's carbon emissions according to the information released by the Electrical and Mechanical Services Department.

Air conditioning accounts for 28% of electricity consumption in the commercial sector, making it the primary source of energy usage. Therefore, switching to energy-efficient chillers equipped with AI technology to achieve optimal energy efficiency is a highly effective way to reduce carbon emissions from buildings.