Energy efficiency
Our energy strategy aims to improve energy efficiency by 10% between 2024 and 2030.
Waste heat recycled
Of the K Group stores, the grocery stores’ energy consumption is the highest because they need a lot of energy to safeguard the cold chain of their products. In fact, the key means of improving energy efficiency are upgrading refrigeration units and lighting, as well as new innovations, such as a heat recycling system that recycles the waste heat from refrigeration systems, and the use of analytics services that analyse energy consumption at stores.
Major energy renovations are generally carried out in conjunction with store renovations, during which K-food stores and Kespro’s wholesale outlets renovate their refrigeration units.
Our heat recycling system efficiently utilises as its energy source all the waste heat in a property, such as the condensation heat of the refrigeration system and the waste heat of exhaust air, and generates energy for all the heating and cooling systems in the property. By recycling waste heat, we generate on average about 50% of the heat demand of renovated stores.
New energy-efficient LED lighting will be installed in stores when they are renovated. Switching to LED lighting will reduce the electricity consumption of one K-Citymarket by an average of about 550 MWh, which is equivalent to the annual consumption of about 30 electrically heated detached houses. In total, the LED lighting upgrades in K-Citymarket stores have already saved around 28 GWh, which corresponds to around 15% of the chain’s electricity consumption.
Systematic measures to improve energy efficiency
To reach the target of our energy strategy, we need to implement and record 95 GWh of energy efficiency measures in our reporting system.
To actively reduce energy consumption, K Group must make long-term investments and continuously monitor consumption and technical systems, as well as react to deviations. During our previous energy strategy period in 2018–2023, we implemented a total of almost 4,000 energy efficiency measures and achieved savings of around 115 GWh.
In 2024, we implemented energy efficiency measures totalling approximately 20.9 GWh. The most significant measures included the installation of an energy recycling system using waste heat in 20 sites, which is estimated to reduce district heat consumption by around 10 GWh.
