German test house TÜV Rheinland has partnered with the British Building Research Establishment (BRE) to award the first smart building certification in China to the Nanjing MixC World developed by China Resources Land Nanjing.

The rating of the project was ‘excellent’ and the the participating modules attained a rating of ‘outstanding’.

The MixC World is on Zhongshan South Road, Qinhuai District, Nanjing City, with a construction area of 136,000 square metres. It is composed of a mall plus a block plus ancient buildings, with the Yunzhang Guild historical and cultural building restored from the original site as the core, forming a cultural and commercial atmosphere integrating ancient streets and alleys.

This project is a smart shopping mall based on IoT technology and intelligent systems. By creating various smart scenarios, it is said to provide a convenient, efficient and comfortable shopping experience.

The project used IoT, 5G, wifi, big data and other technologies to digitise and upgrade the mall into an intelligent facility. The intelligent system includes information networks, information guidance and releases, customer flow analysis and statistics, intrusion alarms, video surveillance, intelligent fire protection, parking management, automatic control of building equipment, lighting control, and energy management.

The intelligent system at its core can optimise the energy-saving control of building systems and improve operational efficiency. The system has automatic monitoring functions for the central cooling system, boiler room control system, building equipment automatic control, intelligent lighting and electric power monitoring. The swarm intelligent monitoring software has remote control, fault alarm, historical data storage and trend curve display functions.

The project has a two-star green building design, and is a pilot project for efficient data centres, showing performance in green and low-carbon aspects, with an annual refrigeration energy efficiency ratio of 6.12, meeting the first-level energy efficiency standard. Strategies and measures such as cold room control, intelligent load regulation of chiller units, water pump and cooling tower control, end control, and linkage have been adopted for the project to improve the overall energy efficiency ratio of the refrigeration room and reduce project operating costs.

At the same time, high-efficiency light sources, high-efficiency lamps and energy-saving control measures are used for lighting in various areas, including the use of energy-saving lamps and electronic ballasts for green lighting. Control measures such as zoning, timing and induction have been implemented for the lighting system in public areas such as corridors, stairwells, lobbies, entrances and underground parking lots.

In addition, a smart nursery room has been set up in the mall, including real-time sensing of occupancy of the breastfeeding room through the installation of IoT sensors and the use of various access control methods to prevent unauthorised use, providing users with a convenient, safe and private experience.

TÜV Rheinland reviewed the information infrastructure and smart low-carbon aspects of the Nanjing MixC World project based on the full set of drawings for the building’s mechanical and electrical intelligent design data, green building design data, BIM drawings, system and equipment debugging data, and on-site inspections.

TÜV Rheinland and BRE jointly released the Smart Building Evaluation System in November 2022, which has been filed with the China National Accreditation & Certification Administration (CNCA). The evaluation assesses four modules – data and information security, building space and structure, green and low-carbon, and health and comfort. Based on ensuring the safety and effectiveness of a building’s information infrastructure, it focuses on the green performance, spatial structure performance, and indoor health and comfort of the building from an intelligent perspective, guiding achievement of the composite goals of safety, comfort, greenness and intelligence for the building.