Swire Properties strives to continuously reduce our consumption of energy. In 2025, we used various technologies and strategic improvements to achieve this objective through a wide range of technical upgrades across our properties.

Typically, an ice storage system is used for thermal energy storage in a chilled water system, but this is both complicated and energy intensive, as it needs to freeze the storage material. Using a phase change material, specifically a non-toxic eutectic solution of salt hydrates, the solution’s freezing and melting points can be adjusted to the desired temperatures.

Our innovative solution for Taikoo Li Sanya's chilled water system employs a 9oC phase change material that allows the chiller system to maintain its conventional equipment, improving energy efficiency as compared to an ice storage system. This shifts the cooling load to non-peak hours, enhancing reliability in cases of electricity rationing or extreme temperatures and reducing energy consumption by 13% compared to typical ice storage systems.

We continued our upgrading of conventional centrifugal fans to EC plug fans across our portfolios this year, seeking to provide energy-efficient ventilation in all our spaces. In 2025, all of the 52 Air Handling Units and 5 Primary Air Units on the office floors of Taikoo Hui Guangzhou Tower 2 were upgraded to EC plug fans. These will reduce annual energy consumption by 128,000 kWh.

Two aging R134a chillers at Citygate were replaced with new R514A variable-speed drive (“VSD”) chillers, enhancing energy efficiency and reducing our environmental impact by adopting a more sustainable refrigerant. The new chillers will save around 195,000 kWh of electricity per year, and have a drastically reduced global warming potential (“GWP”). The new refrigerant, R514A, has a GWP of two as opposed to 1,430 for the previous refrigerant – a reduction of over 99%.

We also replaced two existing air-cooled chillers at Island Place with one water-cooled chiller and a new cooling tower and upgraded the refrigerant to R514A. Work will be completed in early 2026 and will result in higher energy performance, with estimated energy savings of around 250,000 kWh per year.

The existing Three Pacific Place chiller plant system, with six constant speed water-cooled centrifugal chillers, had been operating for 20 years, close to its operational life expectancy of 20-25 years. Two of the existing chillers were replaced with two new 600TR variable speed chillers using R514A refrigerant, which helps reduce annual energy consumption by 335,000 kWh, or a 9% reduction in chiller plant energy consumption.

In One and Two Pacific Place, we identified several opportunities to enhance thermal comfort and improve the efficiency of the heating, ventilation and air conditioning (“HVAC”) system. Energy retrofitting work began in 2024 and is expected to last three years. Major components of the work are:

These improvements are expected to yield annual energy savings of over 1,070,000 kWh.

At Pacific Place Mall, we began upgrading our FCUs to intelligent FCUs serving the arcade, toilets and back-of-house areas in 2024. This year, we completed the upgrade of 71 units. This work will produce energy savings of over 102,000 kWh annually.

The long-running Taikoo Li Sanlitun air conditioning renovation project involved gradually converting the mall’s decentralised heat pump-based air conditioning system to an energy-efficient centralised cooling and heating system. As renovation work continued during mall operations, tenant coordination was key to the project’s success. The project commenced in 2018 and was finally completed in mid-2025. The new system is expected to generate total energy savings of 13,400,000 kWh annually.

In mid-2025, the two cooling towers at Taikoo Hui Guangzhou underwent an energy efficiency retrofit. Traditional two-speed motors were replaced with variable frequency drive (“VFD”) motors, and spray nozzles and fan blades were upgraded to improve heat dissipation. The work will enhance cooling performance and reduce electricity consumption.

A coffee shop tenant’s premises is located at the most hydraulically remote loop of the chilled water system. The outlet has longer operational hours and higher cooling demands than other retail tenants. To create more flexible air conditioning operations for the outlet and enhance energy efficiency for the whole development, a dedicated air source heat pump system was installed in 2025. The five-mode system creates efficiencies for heating and cooling, reducing energy consumption by around 233,000 kWh per year and cutting heating-related carbon emissions by 49 tonnes of CO₂-e annually.

Throughout the year, we trialled AI chiller plant optimisation solutions at Cityplaza, Citygate and Taikoo Hui Guangzhou. These trials focused on enabling automatic control of the chiller plants with the goal of maintaining optimal indoor thermal comfort while maximising energy savings. The trials used machine learning to predict future cooling loads and optimise the plants’ controls, resulting in a 5% improvement in efficiency.

At HKRI Taikoo Hui, we created further energy savings in the air conditioning system this year by optimising several aspects of the automatic control system. These included:

These measures are estimated to reduce electricity consumption by 250,000 kWh annually and reduce natural gas usage by 40,000m³/year.