White Roof Case Study: Sylvia Park Shopping Centre in Auckland
Good example of a large white roof in New Zealand by Ian Montanjees of White Roofs Project (NZ)
Sylvia Park shopping centre in Auckland, built around 2006, is a good example of a white roof deliberately chosen for its energy saving measures. The white roof reflects much more sunlight and is much cooler in the sun than a dark roof which adsorbs much more sunlight and then re-radiates it as infrared or what we call heat back into the environment and also into the building. So, the white roof cuts down on the amount of heat entering the building through the roof and significantly reduces the electricity consumption by the air conditioning to keep the interior cool. The energy bill was also reduced by using Low E coated glass on skylights to cut down solar heat into the building, and “free cooling” to circulate air without additional mechanical cooling when outside conditions allow. The tenants benefit from the air conditioning savings.
And as we know, the white roof not only cools the building but also helps to cool the planet, a win-win situation. The Sylvia Park white roof has an area of approximately 40,000 square metre. Data from science studies, applied directly to Sylvia Park without modifying it to suit these NZ conditions (which requires extra work which could be done later on when there are resources), indicates that the 40,000 square meter roof cancels out the global warming of roughly 5000 tonne of CO2 emissions, which would be like taking roughly 1050 cars off the road for one year.
The satellite photo (Google Earth) on the left (above) shows the Sylvia Park complex, bisected by the motorway that runs over the top, with the white roofs showing in stark contrast to the bitumen paving. The photo at right shows part of the roof seen on the right of the satellite photo. Note that the small concrete carpark in centre-left also shows up fairly white because concrete has a significant reflectivity. (Research at the Berkeley Lab, California, indicates concrete roading reflects significantly more sunlight back into space than black bitumen and costs about the same).
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