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par Maxime BOURASSIN le Jul 27, 2025 5:05:21 PM
Large volumes and high ceilings, numerous openings and high power consumption: the energy cost of operation weighs heavily on the budgets of supermarkets and hypermarkets.
It's estimated that the average energy consumption of a food-dominated superstore is around 900 kWh/m2/year. To aim for maximum energy efficiency, it's useful first to understand how supermarkets consume electricity, by differentiating between supermarkets (between 400 and 2,500 m²) and hypermarkets (2,500 m² and over).
In terms of energy efficiency, the supermarket sector has not waited for the latest directives to take numerous initiatives: switching off signs at night, reducing lighting intensity by 50% before customers arrive, reducing lighting intensity by 30% when customers are present during critical consumption periods, switching off air renewal at night, staggering ice production, lowering the ambient temperature in all sales outlets to 17°C during peak hours...
These solutions often require financial investment, reorganization of the store, and when oversights or mistakes are made, this can have consequences for the business.
They can also be accompanied by simpler, quicker-to-implement gestures or solutions, which are unlikely to disrupt the store's activity. These are the solutions we propose to share with you in this article.
Contents
- How do superstores consume electricity?
- 3 ideas for reducing electricity bills without disrupting store operations
How do superstores consume electricity?
A retail outlet uses electricity all the time, even when it's closed. In both supermarkets and hypermarkets, fresh produce departments account for the vast majority of expenditure.
Here's a breakdown of the three main areas of expenditure for sales outlets:
🚨 Lighting: By making the store more visible and guiding customers through the aisles, lighting plays a major role in the user experience and the customer journey. It accounts for around 25% of a store's average energy bill.
🚨 Heating and air conditioning: temperature and good air quality are among customers' main criteria for defining a comfortable environment in a store. A healthy, pleasant environment also contributes to employee well-being! More productive, less absent, comfort contributes to the overall smooth running of the store. The use of electricity to heat or maintain cool temperatures represents between 12 and 20% of the overall electricity budget.
🚨 Cold production and preservation: this would be around 12%. Of course, respecting and maintaining the cold chain remains essential to comply with health standards and ensure the proper preservation of products.
It is estimated that the average supermarket in France consumes 450 kWh/m²/year. Supermarkets range in size from 400 to 2,500 m². As an example, for a 1,500 m² supermarket, this gives an average annual consumption of 675,000 kWh/year.
In a supermarket, food refrigeration represents the biggest item of expenditure, accounting for almost half of overall energy consumption. Yet significant energy savings are possible. For example, continuous real-time temperature monitoring alerts staff to any abnormal temperature. Staff can then react very quickly to correct deviations and optimize cold management.
The surface area of a hypermarket varies from 2,500 to 20,000 m², or even more. The estimated average consumption for this type of outlet is 290 kWh/m²/year. For a surface area of 25,000 m², average consumption is 7,250,000 kWh/year.
In short, electricity consumption accounts for no less than 60% of supermarket expenses. It's the second-largest expense item after payroll.
According to ADEME, the French agency for ecological transition, by reducing the temperature of a sales outlet by 1 ℃, it is possible to achieve average energy savings of around 7%!
💡 S ee all our articles on building energy performance
3 quick ideas to reduce electricity bills
As we said in the introduction, when it comes to energy sobriety, the supermarket sector has already taken many initiatives. Although necessary, they are often costly, both financially and organizationally.
These resolutions can be accompanied by other gestures, which are simpler and quicker to put in place, and which don't get in the way of business!
1. Favoring re-use, turning off computer equipment and office lighting at night
💡 Did you know? office lighting and IT equipment cost more than leaving a sign up all night!
Computers, servers and other digital devices account for around 14% of greenhouse gas emissions. For example, a single email generates 4 grams of CO2, while a message with a photo represents the equivalent of a car's fuel consumption over 500 meters.
👉 In 2017, WWF published this report synthesizing a survey conducted on theenvironmental footprint linked to the digital activity of 530,000 private and public sector employees, and here's what they found. Each employee working on an online computer consumes an average of :
- 5,300 liters of water (including the water used to manufacture user equipment), equivalent to 880 6l packs of mineral water!
- 360 kg of greenhouse gases, the equivalent of driving 2,400 kms by car
- 3,500 kWh of energy, or 80 low-energy 25W light bulbs on 220 working days for 8!
It's easy to see how the amount of electricity used for computer equipment and office lighting can weigh heavily on thecarbon footprint of employees, but also on the sales outlet's bill!
Simple solutions include:
✅ Favoring re-use to extend the life of equipment
✅ Reducing printing volumes and choosing FSC or Blue Angel-labeled paper
✅ Getting into the habit of turning off lights and computer equipment in the evening
✅ Favoring, as far as possible, conversations by telephone or in person (plus, it fosters good human relations!)
✅ Store data on local servers rather than in clouds where data circulates on servers located thousands of kilometers away
✅ Prefer laptops, which consume less energy than a desktop PC.
2. Monitor electricity consumption in real time
💡If electricity is so difficult to save, it's because it's an invisible energy! You can't actually see how much you're using. Accurate, instantaneous monitoring of consumption is the only way to detect hidden standby, unnecessary consumption and avoid oversights. It also enables us to understand which actions are really effective for the store.
Last but not least, it allows us to track the savings we've made! And that's no mean feat: when it comes to mobilizing an entire store around an energy-saving policy, you need to be able to communicate the results to appreciate the efforts made.
Indispensable for optimizing energy requirements, Building Management Systems (BMS) and Centralized Technical Management (CTM) are an integral part of smart buildings, intelligent management systems that enable all technical installations (heating, air conditioning, electricity, ventilation, lighting, alarms, video surveillance, access, etc.) to be programmed, controlled and regulated remotely. They require investment (usually between 7 k€ and 10 k€), but can generate significant savings, and therefore generally pay for themselves very quickly.
Building management systems (BMS) can be used to manage all the components of a building , whether electrical, heating, air-conditioning or ventilation. It remotely controls site activity and supervises all installed equipment.
The BMS, on the other hand, is used more in the industrial sector. It controls all the technical installations in a single batch. For example, in the electrical sector, the BMS manages lighting, presence detection and electrical energy consumption, all managed by a hypervisor that can control several BMSs.
Depending on the specific features of your store, intelligent management also enables you to automate a range of daily tasks, such as switching lighting or your video surveillance system on and off.
3. Insulate your building's roof quickly and permanently with cool roof
Did you know that the roof is responsible for almost 30% of heat loss? It's a weak point in the supermarket's energy consumption!
The cooling costs generated by heat, meanwhile, are increasing and are comparable to those for heating, particularly for cooling condensers. Between overall air-conditioning and the effort required by each cooling unit (fridges and cold rooms, refrigerated display cases, etc.), energy expenditure becomes very costly.
Composed of mineral materials and acrylic elastomer resins, cool roof consists of covering building roofs with reflective white paint. Its high-coverage, elastic composition reduces existing micro-cracks, making it a valuable ally, particularly during roof renovation.
Because it effectively protects the interior of buildings from strong external climatic variations, without having to anticipate work that would hinder business, cool roof puts food stores on the path to energy transition and is becoming the preferred insulation of food manufacturers and professionals (supermarkets, hypermarkets, logistics platforms, etc.).
This investment in energy-efficient renovation enables us to :
✅ Reduce interior temperatures by up to 10 degrees without affecting the building structure or hindering activity during application, which takes place on the roof
✅ Improve working conditions for employees and the customer experience
✅ Improve storage conditions for materials and goods
✅ Enhance the value of the land and extend the life of the roof's waterproofing to 20 years (expect savings on waterproofing too!).
✅ Take an active part in the collective effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions
✅ Achieve energy savings of up to 40% per year
If you manage a commercial tertiary building and want to make energy savings, you may be eligible for the CEE bonus.
💡Goodto know: not all reflective paints qualify for the CEE bonus! Only reflective coatings with a minimum lifespan of 20 years are eligible for the CEE (the application of acrylic paint without a PVDF-based finish has a lifespan of 5 to 10 years).
The CovaTherm range has an SRI in new and aged condition of 118 (according to ISO 16474-3: 2020 after 4,000 hours of artificial aging) and a 20-year service life thanks to the CovaTherm Top Coat finish.
In conclusion, the electricity consumed by supermarkets and hypermarkets is used for lighting, heating, air conditioning and refrigeration. The rise in energy prices can be at least partly offset by a reduction in consumption, and this can be achieved through initiatives that do not interfere with the business: encouraging re-use, switching off computer equipment and office lighting at night, monitoring electricity consumption in detail and simultaneously, or insulating the building roof with the application of cool roof paint.
For this last point, to determine the best insulation method for your supermarket, don't hesitate to call in a professional who will draw up an energy performance diagnosis. Depending on your project, he'll be able to advise you on the best cost-benefit ratio for your immediate and long-term investment .
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