A HI-TECH eco-friendly project at a well-known Great Yarmouth department store will help save the earth and save money.

A total of �100,000 has been spent on making sure that Market Place-based Palmers and its sister store in Lowestoft use energy as effectively as possible.

And following the completion of the Yarmouth store’s work this month, which saw an overhaul of its lighting, refrigeration and boilers, the company’s finance manager Tony Green spoke of the benefits.

He said: “From a retail perspective people are very on board with this, in that we’ve got much better lighting and control over our equipment and we’re saving at least 20 to 25pc on our retail bills.

“As a company we’re very green in terms of the fact we’re always looking at doing what we can, and we’re now looking at what we can do on water usage.”

The project was hatched in March, started in August and supported by an interest-free loan of �60,000 from the Carbon Trust, with hopes it will save �30,000 and 125 tonnes of carbon emission from the two stores next year.

It has seen the installation of modern lighting throughout both stores, as well as a boiler and refrigeration control system allowing them to be used as efficiently as possible.

Described as “intelligent”, the control system will alter how much electricity or how much fuel is used according to the needs of the store and staff at the time.

The work was carried out by CarbonAqua of Norwich, which specialises in projects of this type and Bowers and Barr of Yarmouth, who were the main electrical contractors.

Mr Green added: “We might be 175 years old as a business but we would like to think people would be pleased that we’re doing what we can to be able to help with energy costs, as we all know that it is often a finite resource.”