We’ve noticed the shortage of Electrical Project case studies on our website, this may seem like we lack experience, but that couldn’t be further from the truth! We have an example right here, an on-going retail/Shopping centre installation project at Ilford’s Exchange.

The Exchange Ilford is the main retail shopping mall in the town centre of Ilford, London. Opened in 1991, located opposite the train station, the Exchange comprises over 77 retailers including Department store: Debenhams and major national retailers: M&S, TK Maxx, Next, H&M, New Look, Wilko, Pandora, Sports Direct, and more. It welcomes an average footfall of 206,000 on a weekly basis plus the internal management and support staff.

In October 2017, a series of improvement phases at The Exchange commenced, with the aim to ensure the centre serves it's local community as well as possible. Works included internal refurbishment and de-cluttering, the introduction of new pause points, improved parking with new dedicated parent parking zone, new toilets and parent & baby facilities, and a large free children's play area.

The Car Park

At the Exchange, the multi-storey car park offers just over 1,000 spaces, with an average dwell time of 1 hour, the car park handles a lot of traffic. So the decision was made to improve the lighting for this area. Not only to better the brightness and visibility, furthermore, to achieve an energy efficient way to light the multi-storey premise.

The car park’s fluorescent T5 lighting on levels 2 and 3 were operating on running costs in excess of £56,000 per annum. The light would be in operation all hours from opening to closing. The lights would be illuminated at full capacity with no time out, dimming or daylight saving. Within the 6 levels of the car parking, there are 1,000 customer parking spaces, goods loading bays, ramps linking the levels, roof top parking and emergency escape stairways. That needs a lot of energy!

The existing system had an estimated annual energy consumption exceeding 200,000kWh for each of the customer levels.

The New Equipment:

The new equipment proposed, with smart sensors fitted, is estimated to be only be 12% of the above consumption rate.

Find out how this was achieved by reading the full case study here.