Energy Efficiency for Garden Centres

Walk into a modern UK garden centre and you’ll find far more than rows of plants and compost. Today’s sites are multi-purpose destinations, with glasshouses, shops, cafés, restaurants, and even EV charging points. They’re part greenhouse, part retail store, part hospitality venue. 

But with that variety comes complexity. Heating glasshouses in winter, running chilled storage for flowers, powering kitchens, and lighting expansive retail spaces all add up to one thing: huge energy demand. 

Where Energy is Spent (and Lost) 

Garden centres juggle multiple intensive systems: 

• Glasshouse heating and ventilation to keep plants healthy. 

• Lighting for horticulture, retail, and car parks. 

• Refrigeration for fresh stock and cut flowers. 

• Commercial kitchens driving high electricity and gas loads. 

• HVAC for comfortable customer spaces. 
• Irrigation systems and pumps running daily. 

Left unmanaged, these systems often run harder and longer than they need to, draining margins and increasing carbon footprints. 

The Pressures on Garden Centres  

UK operators face a double challenge: 

1. Rising energy bills are eating into profitability. 
2. Increasing pressure to deliver on carbon reduction commitments. 

Balancing plant protection, customer comfort, and sustainability can feel impossible. 

The EDGE Advantage 

 That’s where EPX’s EDGE platform comes in. EDGE acts as an intelligent control and optimisation layer across every part of the estate: 

• Real-time monitoring of energy use across glasshouses, kitchens, and retail. 

• Intelligent scheduling of heating, cooling, and lighting to match demand. 

• Environmental controls that keep plants healthy without wasting energy. 

• Predictive maintenance that spots faults before they disrupt operations. 

• Centralised visibility for operators managing multiple sites. 

Growing Smarter, Greener Garden Centres 

Garden centres will always need energy to nurture plants, serve customers, and run busy kitchens. But with EDGE, they don’t need to waste it. 

By adopting EPX’s intelligent optimisation, garden centres can grow healthier plants, cut costs, and reduce carbon footprints, all while keeping customers comfortable. 

Because at the end of the day, energy shouldn’t grow faster than your plants.