A carbon-zero plant? It’s possible!

Panattoni has built for Danfoss Poland a production and office complex that has an area of more than 13,000 sqm, including accompanying infrastructure. The investment is in Grodzisk Mazowiecki on the Danfoss campus. The production part makes up 7,200 sqm, another 2,000 sqm is designated for office, laboratory and social spaces, 2,000 for warehouse and 1,200 sqm is a technical building. The facility has been equipped with advanced automation and robotics technologies to assure the highest quality of products.

Tailored to requirements

Constructing a new production, warehouse, and office complex for Danfoss was extremely demanding for Panattoni. The construction works should not adversely affect operations at the company’s neighbouring factory and should allow for maintaining continuous production with the relocation of 45 production lines from its plant in Denmark.
Panattoni executed this task perfectly.

Danfoss Poland – the Polish subsidiary of the Danish manufacturer of energy-efficient components and technological solutions for refrigeration, air-conditioning, and heating, has a new plant in Grodzisk Mazowiecki that currently manufactures, including energy-efficient valves for industrial refrigeration and commercial refrigeration systems or solenoid valves for various applications in tap water systems. These products drive the green changes at hundreds of companies that use Danfoss services. That is why the new factory needed to be one hundred percent in line with the direction that Danfoss is giving not only to its business partners but also to itself. And it has ambitious targets – Danfoss plans to achieve CO2 neutrality for all business operations as early as 2030.

Achieving our green goals

The choice of Panattoni as the project developer for Danfoss in Grodzisk Mazowiecki was not accidental. Panattoni is one of the leading European developers that strongly focuses on the environmental and green solutions in its projects. It has already delivered almost 17 mln sqm of industrial space in Europe, more than 9 mln of which has been environmentally certified. The developer offers this as a standard option, currently at the very high BREEAM ʻExcellentʼ level. This confirms that the investment has been built in accordance with stringent sustainability principles.

In the case of the Danfoss factory in Grodzisk Mazowiecki, the basis for achieving climate neutrality was energy efficiency measures, heat recovery and a switch to renewable energy sources. Thanks to energy-efficient solutions, also based on Danfoss products, no energy is wasted. All the heating, cooling and ventilation installations and production machines are powered by green electricity.

Maximum plant efficiency

To reduce heat loss, Panattoni has built the factory exceeding the Polish WT2021 standard for energy efficiency in buildings and the solutions applied at the facility allow heat recovery from production processes. The ventilation system with recuperation in the production hall collects the heat and reuses it for heating buildings and water. In addition, heat is also recovered from the chillers and air compressors. This allows the halls and offices to be heated efficiently and water to be used for process heat or hot water. In addition, the developer has installed heat pumps and electric boilers to cover heat and energy needs at peak times, such as in winter.

All the heating, cooling and ventilation systems, as well as all of the production machinery, are powered exclusively by electricity from renewable sources. Danfoss is working with a supplier whose mix consists of 100 pct RES. Additionally, Panattoni has made the roof structure ready for photovoltaic installations. Danfossʼ systems are used everywhere in the facility. The process of cold and heat generation and heat recovery is automated and optimises the operation of the installation depending on the season.

BTS for challenging times

Interest in BTS-type investments is constantly growing. In Central Europe, Poland and Germany alone Panattoni has already completed over 100 custom-built facilities. BTS facilities are most often developed for production activities, but also larger logistics related to the development of e-commerce (e.g. Amazon). Customer-specific facilities are characterised by a higher degree of specialisation or automation, significantly optimise company processes, are cheaper to operate and, above all, are environmentally friendly.

More and more companies are setting climate-neutral goals for themselves and this is what guides them when choosing a developer. Panattoni is an excellent partner in this respect, as it provides production facilities that pass environmental certification at a very high level, often becoming flagship investments for specific companies – such as the factory in Grodzisk Mazowiecki for Danfoss. At the same time, the implemented ESG measures concern not only the energy efficiency of the building itself but also the reduction of water consumption or the well-being of employees, including green relaxation zones, and infrastructure for cyclists or electric cars. The developer is also applying numerous biodiversity solutions to the factories under construction – from landscaped lawns and flower meadows to hotels for insects or houses for invertebrates and small mammals.

European logistics opts for green solutions

The direction toward green solutions is confirmed by a report on sustainability in the area of European logistics and supply chain, which Panattoni prepared in the summer in partnership with international law firm HFW and in cooperation with Analytiqa. As many as 80 pct of the respondents in twelve European countries consider measures aimed at reducing the carbon footprint of their operations to be key in the next five years. For 92 pct of respondents, measures related to building energy efficiency, such as the use of LED lighting, solar panels, heat pumps, etc., are the most important. 59 pct of respondents point to solutions to reduce drinking water consumption and the greater use of grey water and rainwater. As many as 53 pct point to charging stations for electric cars and 45 pct to well-being issues for employees. Biodiversity is important or very important for 39 pct of respondents. This means that the number of buildings moving towards zero carbon emission is only going to increase.