Seremban Prima Mall: Chiller Plant & AHU Retrofit

Cobler retrofitted the controls on the chiller plant and air handling units (AHUs) at Seremban Prima Mall, so the building is cooled according to demand. The work was carried out while the mall stayed open for trading.

The site

Seremban Prima is a seven-storey shopping mall on Jalan Dato Bandar Tunggal in the centre of Seremban. Parkson is the anchor tenant, and the mall also has a cinema, shops and restaurants across roughly 320,000 square feet of lettable space. A mall this size has to cool a large and changing crowd from opening to closing. Cobler retrofitted the controls on its chiller plant and its AHUs.

The problem

A mall's cooling load changes sharply through the day. It is light in the morning and heavy in the afternoon and at weekend peaks, and the chillers and AHUs have to keep shoppers comfortable throughout.

In older buildings, the chiller plant and AHUs often run on outdated or manual controls that hold a fixed output however full the mall is. This keeps the building cool, but it wastes energy whenever the load is below the assumed maximum, which is most of the time.

A retrofit is also harder than a new build. The work has to fit around a mall that stays open, without disturbing trading hours or comfort.

What we did

Cobler retrofitted the building automation on the chiller plant and the AHUs and brought both under coordinated control.

• The chiller plant now runs on demand-based control. Chillers, with their pumps and cooling towers, are staged to the mall's actual cooling load instead of a fixed output, so the plant runs efficiently as the number of shoppers rises and falls.
• The air handling units are controlled to deliver cooling where and when each space needs it. Their output follows occupancy instead of every unit running at full output.
• CobiNeural monitors the retrofitted plant. The team sees consumption, demand and plant efficiency in one place and can confirm the retrofit is working.

What changed

• Shoppers stay comfortable while the chiller plant and AHUs run to demand instead of at full output all day.
• The retrofit was installed around live trading, improving how the building is controlled without replacing it.
• For the operator, the result is a lower cooling bill from the same building, achieved through new controls rather than a rebuild.

See how the same approach works at other sites in our case studies, or talk to us about chiller plant and AHU retrofits for your building.