Case studies

Sparking solar for shopping centres

Oxford is committed to being a leader in the development and operation of energy efficient, low-carbon buildings. The economic and environmental benefits associated with solar power ‘sparked’ Oxford’s pledge to create 1 million SF of rooftop solar by 2024.

To date, we have built over 260,000 SF of solar across our portfolios. Our retail assets made significant strides this year.

Our first significant solar project at Yorkdale Shopping Centre (Toronto, Canada) features 600 rooftop solar panels, installed on 25,000 SF, generating over 234 MWh of clean electricity/year – equivalent to three months of interior and exterior lighting at the property. Les Galeries de la Capitale followed shortly after, installing 80,000 SF and generating over 590 MWh annually.

In 2020, Scarborough Town Centre (Scarborough, Canada) installed over 900 panels, on 54,000 SF, generating 374 MWh annually. More recently, Square One (Mississauga, Canada) installed a whopping 2250 solar panels atop 96,000 SF of rooftop and will generate 920 MWh of electricity per year.

Combined, our shopping centre’s rooftop solar systems generate over 1,500,000 kWh of clean electricity per year. That's enough to power 200 homes for 1 year. Not only does this save on electricity costs, it also positions our shopping centres for the future low-carbon economy.

People’s Choice Award for energy innovation

1101 New York Ave., a Class A office building in Washington, D.C. took home the USGBC National Capital Region’s 2020 People’s Choice Award. The building was one of the City’s first Core and Shell Gold certified office buildings, and in 2019, achieved LEED Operations and Maintenance Platinum.

Overall energy savings contributed to the property team’s big wins. 1101 NYA saw a savings of $1.5 million and an improved Energy Star score, by 19 points in the last two years.

Most notably, the building installed a unique set of solar panels – a project that has proven good for the environment and the people of the community. Along with Gallery Place, a mixed-use office and retail building, the two have installed ~10,000 SF and produce over 100 MWh annually. At 3,500 SF, 1101 NYA boasts the first significant combined green roof and solar panel array, as well as the largest roof terrace solar canopy in DC’s commercial core.

Oxford partnered with nonprofit New Partners Community Solar – the region’s leading solar development corporation. All the clean renewable energy produced from the panels is donated to low income households in the community via a credit of 50% off their monthly electricity bills.

New Partners Community Solar also designed and installed a first of its kind “sustainability powered resilience room” at one of the residential communities. This resilience room can provide three days of power to residents, allowing them to preserve refrigerated medication, stay connected to important emergency information, and charge essential medical devices.

Detecting tech opportunity

Four years ago, we started a journey to explore opportunity detection (a.k.a. fault detection diagnostics). The software pulls data from building systems (BAS, lighting, energy meters) in real-time, processes the data, and then alerts our operations teams to opportunities to improve building performance. Opportunities improve comfort for our customers, reduce energy consumption, and reduce our cost to operate and maintain our assets.

We are now collecting and processing data from 19 buildings across our portfolio every 15 minutes – more than 15 billion data points per year! This big data has pointed to big opportunity, and we are proud to announce we hit a major milestone of $1 million in cumulative opportunities identified.

Achieving these results is a team effort. None of these opportunities are realized without our Operations teams who actively work with our partners to resolve identified issues – these are tools in our toolbox.

As we consider the world of digital twins and building virtualization, the data in our buildings is becoming increasingly critical to the way in which we operate. We see value for this technology not only in existing buildings, but also in building commissioning as well. Soon, harvesting and utilizing operational data through advanced analytics (artificial intelligence, machine learning) will be the norm in our industry.

Collectively we are moving the needle on building performance optimization – one data point at a time!

Stacking up to zero carbon

We know climate change is one of the pressing issues of our time and we must do our part. This means developing buildings that focus on emissions during design and operations. As part of a broader strategy to achieve zero carbon, Oxford’s development team saw an opportunity to investigate and build Canada’s first zero carbon high-rise.

At 600,000 SF, The Stack will be the tallest commercial office tower in downtown Vancouver and is aiming for the CaGBC’s Zero Carbon Building Standard (ZCB) certification. With 35 floors, the building will be a predominantly electric, high performance building (target energy intensity is projected to be 8 kWh per SF a year, compared to 19 kWh per SF for an average Vancouver office building).

It boasts a triple-glazed curtain wall with double low e-coating, electric heat recovery chillers, back-up natural gas boilers, and a small amount of solar arrays on the roof that will produce 25,000 kWh of renewable electricity annually.

Customer spaces will also have personal thermal controls, real-time indoor air quality sensors and monitoring, a 5,000 SF club-quality fitness centre and change room/shower facilities.

The building provides unobstructed panoramic views of the city, water and mountains, a pocket park on the ground level (7,500 SF), seven outdoor terraces and a 6,000 SF communal rooftop patio.

It is future proofed with integrated smart technology and multi-modal transportation options, including a dedicated drop-off zone, access to ride-share providers and 250 bike stalls.

The Stack is a true example of industry leadership. Investing in the low-carbon economy demonstrates returns for our business, partners, customers, and the community at large.

LED conversions drive savings

Oxford’s Hotels team set their sights on reducing energy consumption through LED retrofits, and the results are impressive.

The InterContinental Hotel, located in downtown Toronto, completed its conversion to 100% LED lighting in early 2019. The five-year project started with converting meeting rooms and the lobby, with the back of house area and guest rooms following. This drove a 20% reduction in electricity and $270,000 (CAD) in annual cost savings.

The other hotels in Oxford’s portfolio, namely, Chateau Whistler, Chateau Lake Louise, Jasper Park Lodge and the Banff Springs, including the Canmore laundry facility also achieved their goals to convert lighting to 100% LED by the end of 2019 and were able to redeem over $145,000 (CAD) in incentives in the process.

Park Hyatt, currently under development, is also expected to be fully fitted with LED fixtures.

An all-inclusive upgrade to the dimming systems across the hotels’ meeting spaces was also completed at the end of 2020.

Through these projects a total of over 58,000 LED bulbs were installed across 3.8M SF.

New energy systems = big savings

Our multi-residential team is continuously working to find innovative ways to reduce carbon emissions and increase energy efficiency – a strategy that makes both environmental and economic sense for residents and Oxford.

That’s why the team partnered with Legend Power® Systems Inc. to pilot an onsite energy management technology aimed at finding efficiencies and minimizing a building’s electricity use. The technology metering and monitoring system captures causes of equipment malfunctions, failures and inefficiencies. Legend Power installed two SmartGATE™ platforms at two assets in Canada – Lakeside Place and Forest Lane Apartments. For both assets, the system resulted in an average annual electricity reduction of 6%, which is about 465,000 kWh or $56,000 per year. That’s equivalent to powering 85 apartment units for an entire year!

As a result of these analytics, the multi-residential portfolio is now equipped with the capability of up to 500 control points, giving the operations team the control needed to manage their mechanical equipment.