Shopping centres

zoom Shopping centres
Shopping centres
 

  • General characteristics
    Shopping centres are large buildings featuring a wide variety of spaces - from large supermarkets to small boutique stores and wide open entrance areas. Each of these spaces requires specific air handling solutions, aimed at guaranteeing both customer comfort and product preservation.
    In winter, cold and humid outside air is heated to a temperature of around 20°C. However this means that relative humidity decreases drastically, down to 10-30%, a level that is much lower than the conditions needed to ensure personal comfort, typically between 40-60% RH. Consequently, air humidification systems are needed, which are able to modulate capacity according to climatic conditions.
    Large retail structures also feature considerable heat losses and frequent air changes, factors that affect the air-conditioning system in summer; indeed, often this is one of the major expense items in the management of these types of buildings, despite the increasingly widespread trend to exploit heat exchangers to reduce energy wastage. The ideal solution however is to integrate "traditional" systems - based on the refrigeration cycle that comprises condensation and expansion of a refrigerant - with evaporative cooling systems. The latter work by atomising water into millions of very fine droplets that rapidly evaporate in the air stream, thus cooling the air. In fact, 100 kg/h of evaporated water absorbs around 69 kW of heat from the air, for power consumption of less than 1 kW, around 20-25 times lower than a traditional system! The wide range of Carel adiabatic humidifiers includes solutions that can satisfy both requirements of a shopping centre in just one system: humidification in winter and saving energy consumed by air-conditioning in summer.
    As well as common spaces, individual stores may also require specific solutions, depending on the products they sell. In supermarkets, for example, the cold rooms used to store fruit and vegetables are equipped with systems that keep the air temperature and relative humidity within an optimum range of values. Carel provides a wide choice of reliable, energy-saving solutions that precisely control air temperature and humidity, thus ensuring food maintains its appearance and freshness, reducing waste and improving sales.

  • Plus
    • Humidification in winter and cooling in summer for maximum customer comfort;
    • Energy saving for air-conditioning in summer with evaporative cooling;
    • Tailor-made solutions for preserving products in individual stores;
    • Reduced moisture loss and preservation of the freshness of fruit and vegetables by equipping supermarket cold rooms with humidifiers.