Johannesburg — WITH SA's power crisis not letting up, retail property landlords are moving to assist their retailers in reducing power use and finding ways for them to continue operations during load shedding.

Old Mutual Investment Group Property Investments said on Monday that it and the management of shopping centres in its property portfolio were confident of achieving a further 20% reduction in power use, the same as required of the hospitality industry. "With co-operation, we believe this can be achieved with minimum impact on retailers and their service to customers," the group said.

The group said it had been working with Eskom for more than a year on energy-saving initiatives and that in one project, a saving of 4MW had been achieved by more efficient control of air conditioning in four buildings.

It said that at Cavendish Square in Cape Town, consumption had been reduced 30% through energy monitoring and measures including control of lighting, energy-saving lamp replacement and timed air conditioning.

Other large retail property owners said they were also looking at similar methods.

Pieter Prinsloo, MD of retail focused listed property company Hyprop Investments, said over the past two years the company had been changing to energy-saving lamps in its shopping centres. Among the shopping centres in the company's R8bn property portfolio are Canal Walk in Cape Town, and Hyde Park

"We are also looking for further energy savings through better usage of our air conditioning systems in our shopping centres. We are also working closely with our retailers finding the best solutions for keeping shopping centres operational during load shedding periods," said Prinsloo.

"To that extent we are looking to increase our generator power and also assisting our retailers where we can with providing back-up power for their shops."

Norbert Sasse, CEO of SA's largest listed property company Growthpoint Properties, said load shedding was "an industry issue that everybody is facing".

"We are assessing the impact of load shedding on our retailers and what their minimum power requirements would be in the event of a power cut so we can try and come up with a solution to keep them operational.

"And at the same time we are evaluating more energy efficient ways of electricity usage within the buildings," said Sasse.