Real estate investment trust Hyprop is set to decrease its carbon footprint further, with the landlord expanding its solar project across 66% of its South African shopping mall portfolio.

“As part of Hyprop’s drive to continually minimise the impact on the environment, one of our key focus areas is to reduce the consumption of natural resources where possible.

"The installation of solar, a renewable energy source, is only part of our drive towards positive change in creating safe environments and spaces where people can connect and be part of a community. At completion, six of our nine malls will be making use of solar power,” says Hyprop CEO Morné Wilken.

The roll-out of solar throughout most of the portfolio is also expected to mitigate the risk of continuous, rising electricity costs for the company.

Hyprop’s first implementation at Clearwater Mall proved successful, and generates 2.91 MW of power at peak. This project was done in three phases with final completion in 2017. The electrical power generated by the solar system is fed back into the centre's grid and consumed in total.

The company is planning a fourth phase which will be implemented after the necessary approval is received from the National Energy Regulator of South Africa. 

Hyprop is, meanwhile, busy with installations at Rosebank Mall, Woodlands, Atterbury Value Mart, Hyde Park Corner and The Glen. The work on these buildings is divided into two phases.

Phase 1 will result in a 1 MW system being installed at each of the Atterbury Value Centre, Woodlands, The Glen and Rosebank Mall centres, while the Hyde Park Corner site only allows for a 384 KW installation to be completed in one phase.

All projects are rolled out by Solareff at a budgeted cost of R68.77-million.

Hyprop expects this to result in yearly energy cost savings of R15.9-million across the portfolio.