Zara Solihull

INTRODUCTION

Part of the Inditex group, one of the world’s largest distribution groups, Zara is a popular and renowned international fashion company. Zara’s story begins with the opening of their first store in the Spanish coastal city of A Coruña in 1975, an early milestone in the company’s long history. Over the years, Zara has remained faithful to its core values, expressed simply in the same four key words that define all their stores: beauty, clarity, functionality and sustainability . Inditex is selling in 202 markets through its online platform and over 7,486 stores in 96 markets and has 63 Zara stores across the UK.

THE CHALLENGE

As a fashion retailer, Zara stores operate a wide variety of electrical equipment from checkouts to lighting and temperature controls. Due to extended operating hours, the stores experience high electricity costs as a result of their high electricity consumption. This was a problem affecting the Zara store in Solihull. Zara holds an unwavering focus on sustainability and improved customer experience, and has stuck by its key defining vision; beauty, clarity, functionality and sustainability in its approach. Therefore, Zara Solihull invited Powerstar to carry out a site evaluation and recommend a solution to reduce the store’s overall energy consumption and carbon footprint, whilst causing minimal disruption to the site’s operations.

THE SOLUTION

Following a thorough site evaluation, load analysis and voltage monitoring, it became apparent that the site had an excessively high supply voltage leading to inflated electrical consumption and costs. The Powerstar team recommended the installation of Powerstar LITE, a fixed voltage optimisation solution, to reduce Zara Solihull’s electrical consumption.

SAVINGS AND BENEFITS

Following the optimisation of the incoming voltage, the store is achieving an annual reduction in electricity consumption of 19.5%, resulting in a 36.52 tonnes reduction in carbon emissions per annum. Additionally, the electrical equipment at Zara Solihull is operating closer to its intended design characteristics, reducing wear and tear and improving longevity of the equipment.

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