Exergio Gives Shopping Malls Energy-Efficient Makeovers With AI

As massive buildings with heat, air conditioning, lighting, and other equipment running around the clock, shopping malls are some of the largest energy consumers. Exergio, an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered platform created by a Lithuania-based company of the same name, is demonstrating how integrating AI-driven solutions into existing systems can help European shopping malls reduce energy waste. 

In 2021, the company added air quality sensors and AI-powered HVAC, airflow, and temperature control systems at the Ozas shopping mall in Vilnius, Lithuania. The AI platform monitors building operations and equipment and automatically adjusts these systems in real-time to optimize energy use. The updates reduced electricity use by 29 percent and heat consumption by 36 percent, saving nearly €1 million annually in energy costs, according to Exergio.

“Coming from a facility maintenance background, we witnessed this issue repeatedly in shopping malls and office buildings,” Exergio CEO Donatas Karčiauskas told TriplePundit. “That’s why we developed a solution to identify and address energy waste, turning it into energy savings instead of losses.”

Exergio’s approach involves control systems that adjust based on building occupancy and weather forecasts, Karčiauskas said. Instead of maintaining unnecessary overhead — such as overheating or overcooling — its systems ensure operations are smarter and more efficient.

“By preparing systems to run only when needed and detecting systemic errors, we can catch even the smallest inefficiencies,” Karčiauskas said. “In large, complex buildings like malls, small issues can have a substantial impact, but with our advanced algorithms and engineering expertise, we ensure energy waste is minimized and operations are optimized.”

Because big buildings host a large number of people and have complex dynamics, they require significant energy resources, Karčiauskas said.

“This is especially true for shopping malls, where the building’s equipment impacts only about 20 percent of energy consumption,” Karčiauskas said. “Most energy is consumed by ventilation and cooling systems. As a result, hardware retrofits tend to be inefficient, with long payback periods, making them less appealing for many businesses.”

But when retrofits like improved equipment or building insulation are already in place, implementing an AI monitoring system afterward can actually increase the time it takes to achieve a return on investment, Karčiauskas said. That’s often not an attractive option for business owners.

"We worked on a project to retrofit cooling machines for a shopping mall before implementing Exergio,” Karčiauskas said. “Initially, we calculated a return on investment of three years by simply replacing the chillers with newer ones, which is a common retrofit.” After optimizing the building’s operations with Exergio, energy consumption was reduced significantly. That efficiency improvement extended the return on investment to 10 years. 

“Jumping straight into retrofitting without first optimizing operations can lead to inaccurate expectations about how quickly your investments will pay off and what key performance indicators should be considered,” Karčiauskas said. “That’s why we recommend using Exergio to focus on improving operations first. This approach allows you to achieve significant savings without the need for extensive retrofits.”

Another option is implementing digital retrofits, such as adding more sensors, ventilation control units, and similar enhancements, Karčiauskas said. These upgrades can be introduced after optimizing building management with AI and typically have shorter return on investment periods, usually just a few years. Digital retrofits also help identify and address operational malfunctions. A malfunctioning carbon dioxide sensor, for example, might fail to provide accurate readings, leading to over-ventilation and wasting up to 5 percent of energy.

Across Europe, individual countries are adopting new sustainability regulations and recommendations, Karčiauskas said. One of the strongest drivers for change is the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, which requires large companies to report social and environmental risks and how their activities impact people and the planet. 

“Policies like the ESG [environmental, social and governance] reporting and auditing requirements are creating a strong incentive for developers to adopt smarter, AI-driven systems to meet regulatory and environmental expectations effectively,” Karčiauskas said.

The potential for AI-driven solutions focused on energy savings is “enormous” and has the potential to disrupt the market for large facility maintenance companies, he said. 

“You’ll be able to rely on any technician, as the AI will have complete knowledge of your building,” Karčiauskas said. “This eliminates the need to depend on large facility maintenance companies for operations — a significant shift in the industry.”

Eventually, building managers may rely less on human technicians, too. Exergio recently purchased a humanoid robot, foreseeing a near future where some building operations are handled by robots. 

“Our tools, which already have a comprehensive understanding of building systems and interact with people, will now be adapted to interact with robots,” Karčiauskas said. “While this might sound futuristic, the pace of technological advancement is rapid, and these changes are closer than we think. In 10 years, the landscape of building operations could look entirely different.”