The comprehensive green transformation programme of Westend Shopping Centre, operated by Gránit Pólus Group, has won the Green Investment of the Year award at this year's Green Awards, run by Portfolio and Green Cloud.
The €10 million programme reshaped the building's operation while the shopping centre, open for more than 25 years and welcoming 18 million visitors a year, stayed open, making it greener. Budapest's largest rooftop solar park, covering 6,500 square metres, was built on the roof of the Westend car park; the heating and cooling system was renewed, the building services were modernised, and the building's energy use is now controlled by an automated building management system based on artificial intelligence.
As a result, Westend's energy consumption has fallen by 38 per cent, its CO2 emissions by 81 per cent compared with the 2019 baseline, and solar power now makes up 80 per cent of its energy consumption.
Westend's solar park, handed over in June this year, generates 1.53 GWh of electricity a year. Its own generation is complemented by a long-term direct power purchase agreement (PPA) with Solar Markt's solar park in Szihalom, giving the complex around 17.53 GWh of renewable energy a year in total.
The development also includes an AI-driven building management system that optimises heating, cooling, ventilation and energy supply in real time, based on nearly 300 data points a day.
The shopping centre has earned an A+ energy rating, and the Crowne Plaza Hotel and the Westend office building an A rating, meeting the requirements of the EU Taxonomy; they are expected to achieve BREEAM In-Use Excellent and Outstanding certification later this year.
As part of the programme, Westend's one-and-a-half-hectare roof garden, the largest public park in Budapest's 6th district, is also being renewed: its green area is growing by around a thousand square metres, planted with native, pollinator-friendly species.
