Electrical Retrofitting: The Strategic Pillar for Efficiency in Panama's Buildings
Experts from Schneider Electric explain how diagnosis and smart load management allow buildings and industries to operate with greater safety and sustainability.
Looking ahead, the challenge for the industry and residential sector in Panama will be to electrify in a planned manner, assessing real capacity and adding smart management to operate efficiently.
Diagnosis and Load Management
According to Rodríguez, electrical retrofitting increases capacity by upgrading distribution and protection infrastructure, turning electrification into an asset of resilience rather than an operational risk.
Operational continuity no longer depends solely on the external grid; internal infrastructure and load management are crucial to avoid unplanned outages.
This trend responds to the need for residential and industrial buildings to enable new loads, such as electric vehicle chargers and automation systems, without compromising safety or service continuity.
Challenges of Current Infrastructure
The construction sector accounted for 32% of global energy consumption in 2023, and the built-up area is expected to continue expanding by 2030.
In an environment where the International Energy Agency (IEA) projects a 3.7% growth in global electricity demand by 2026, the electrical retrofitting of internal systems is consolidating as a strategic decision in Central America.
A precise diagnosis, along with constant monitoring, allows balancing consumption and protecting productivity against the increasing demand.
Roadmap for an Effective Retrofit
For an installation to be "electrification-ready," Schneider Electric proposes five action fronts:
- Capacity Study: Analysis of current and future demand profiles to prevent protection tripping.
- Component Modernization: Migration from traditional wiring to busbar systems that facilitate maintenance and fault detection.
- Operational Efficiency: Use of variable speed drives to reduce motor consumption and free up operational margin.
- Management and Monitoring: Implementation of analytics for predictive maintenance.
- Sustainability: Adoption of technologies that reduce environmental risks during the system's lifecycle.
Rodríguez highlights that these projects offer competitive returns on investment.
David Rodríguez, Sales Director of Systems at Schneider Electric for Central America, points out that many installations were sized for a different reality and now face overload risks.
According to the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the optimization of motor systems can be recovered in less than three years, while the IEA identifies improvements with returns of less than two years.
