Sonae MC Azambuja Warehouse, Vila Nova da Rainha, Portugal

Sonae MC, being part of the multinational retail chain Sonae Group, is the leading company in the food retail sector in Portugal. In their warehouse in Azambuja (near Lisbon) a TOA Voice Alarm and Public Adress System was installed. With a total area of 70 thousand square meters and 235 thousand cubic meters of volumetry, the Azambuja warehouse is now the largest refrigerated warehouse in Portugal and allows, within the closed cold chain, the storage of products from all over the country and the onward distribution to the central warehouse centre as well as to the South of Portugal, Madeira, and the Azores. From design to maintenance, through construction and operation, the new warehouse sought to respond to concerns from the point of view of sustainability and has become the first in Portugal to win international LEED Gold certification (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design). 30% of the building´s required energy is covered by 6,900 photovoltaic panels, spread over an area of 20 thousand square meters, avoiding the production of 1,000 tons of CO2 every year. Together with our partners Tecradio Lda, (system designer, supervisor, and material supplier) and MGB Security Safe (integrator), a holistic TOA VM-3000 voice alarm system with over 200 speakers was installed to provide safe evacuation in case of an emergency, intelligible public address announcements and background music broadcasting.