Potential energy saving opportunities in big box retail stores in Northern climates––Case study towards sustainable buildings

Abstract

The current paper proposes effective energy saving opportunities in a retail store located in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Scarce research has been reported on such applications in North American Climate. Ottawa is characterized by its harsh winter climate where temperatures can be as low as -30 °C. The paper presents a performance comparison between three stores: an original store, a new nearby store for the same company, and a proposed energy efficient store to replace the second store. The proposed store by the authors considers the implementation of a number of proposed retrofits. The simulations were performed on the eQuest software. The model results were validated against collected site data with a maximum deviation of 5%. The results have shown that space heating, and light technology upgrades constitute a major contributor to potential energy saving. The upgraded store energy consumption is about 39% lower than the original one. The space heating upgrade contributes to more than 60% of this saving potential, and the light upgrade makes up for the rest. In addition, economic analysis performed on RETScreen software has revealed that the proposed measures have a payback of 5 years. This is considered reasonable for the application. The debt ratio and interest rates have adverse effect on increasing the payback. Renewable (solar thermal, and photovoltaic) integration can double the payback of the project due to the high cost of PV panels. The current study is a valuable guidance for widespread retail stores in North America.