Segment
Commercial and public buildings
Cut peak loads and energy bills across offices, retail, schools, hospitals and other public buildings.
Offices, retail and mixed-use complexes are under pressure on every side: tenants demand stable comfort, ESG reporting demands hard numbers, and demand-charge tariffs keep rising as the local grid fills up. Cartesian retrofits into the existing hydronic system over a single weekend and delivers measurable energy savings without renovating the building or asking tenants to put up with anything.
Offices, retail and mixed-use complexes operate on tight comfort Service Level Agreements and long lease cycles. Cartesian unlocks energy savings without large infrastructure upgrades in the building.
Common use cases
- Peak-shaving on chilled water
- Replace need for additional chiller capacity
- Pre-cooling for tariff windows
Typical outcomes
- 20–40% peak reduction
- Lower demand charges
- ESG-ready reporting
Why now
Common pain points in commercial and public buildings
Office buildings have a 12:00–18:00 cooling peak in summer. Mixed-use complexes layer on retail and food-and-beverage spikes. The Thermal Box flattens both.
- Steep daily peaks on chilled-water systems drive up demand charges
- Tenants demand stable comfort under increasingly volatile spot prices
- Long lease cycles make deep retrofits hard to justify
- ESG reporting needs hard, audited numbers — not estimates
Indicative sizing
What a typical 5 000–15 000 m² office looks like
- thermal storage
- 100–300 kWh
- peak coverage
- 4 h+
- typical payback
- 3–5 yrs
Recommended solutions for commercial and public buildings
Reduce grid peak demand
Cut visible kW demand to your DSO during the daytime cooling peak.
SolutionIncrease cooling capacity
Add cooling capacity without upsizing chillers or grid connection.
SolutionCompact thermal storage for urban projects
Indoor or outdoor placement when wells, rooftops and noise constrain the site.
Common questions
Got questions about thermal storage?
From PCM chemistry and lifetime to indoor vs outdoor installs and typical payback — the answers are in the full FAQ.
Read all questionsWhat is thermal energy storage?
The term is used when storing energy as heat or cold, which can be released at a later stage. The heat or cold is usually stored when energy is cheap and then released when the heating or cooling demand is at a peak or the cost of energy is high.
What is PCM?
PCM means Phase Change Material and refers to any material that changes state, for example from solid to liquid, when reaching a certain temperature. This phase change enables large amounts of energy to be absorbed or released. Water is one PCM, storing cold at zero degrees Celsius by changing phase to ice. Cartesian uses a wide variety of other materials, such as bio-based waxes, to store heat or cold at different temperatures.
Is the Thermal Box and the PCM flammable?
For applications with HVAC systems, Cartesian's Thermal Box is not considered flammable. While some PCM might be flammable when they reach temperatures above 100 °C or more, the Thermal Box is designed to eliminate any risks of reaching flammability conditions in operations.
Are PCMs safe?
Cartesian offers only safe PCMs and primarily uses bio-based PCMs in the Thermal Box. The PCM will stay in the Thermal Box for its whole lifetime and is not consumed during operation. The Thermal Box is also designed to avoid any risk of PCM leakage.
Let's build the smarter grid