Energy Management Systems by Samsun

In commercial buildings or facilities where food preservation is an essential aspect of business operations, energy consumption is a significant cost of doing business. This can be viewed as a problem, or it can be viewed as an opportunity. Being proactive by taking control of energy use with the right energy management system is how food retailers gain a competitive advantage in performance through greater efficiency.

The savings realized by investing in an EMS can be significant. How significant? One white paper study in Seattle found that on average, 93% of electricity used in grocery and convenience stores goes to refrigeration (60%), lighting (18%), and HVAC (15%). By investing in an EMS solution, grocery stores can achieve a 10% reduction in energy use with a corresponding boost in profit margins by 10%. Given the razor-thin profit margins that already exist in food retailing, the impact on profitability is nothing short of incredible.

What grocery store or supermarket wouldn’t want to boost their profit margins by 10%? It seems like a no-brainer. The problem, however, is often the significant up-front investment required to obtain and install an EMS and how long it takes to pay off the investment before the savings really kick in and impact the bottom line of the business. What food retail stores need to know, however, is that long payback periods are a thing of the past. These days it is possible for a grocery store to experience payback periods of less than two years, compared to what used to be five to seven years.

It’s also worth noting that depending on your location, there may be significant help available through state government incentive programs to adopt energy-saving technologies. These incentive programs may cover a significant portion of the investment, which will further reduce the overall payback period for adopting an EMS.

Among traditional techniques to control energy cost is a common scenario in food retailer energy management: targeting unoccupied times by manually adjusting setpoints on the HVAC system. This seems logical, but rarely works out the way you think it should due to human operator error. The tendency is to overcompensate with setpoints, setting them either too high or too low when the building is unoccupied.

These over-adjustments take a serious toll on the building’s HVAC system. When it kicks on to reach the new setpoint for occupancy, the system is working overtime to get there. These extra-high energy draws also end up happening just when the electric utility grid is experiencing peak demand, which means the electricity rates during those times are much higher than off-peak rates. This is the paradox experienced with setpoint management. You think you’re managing energy consumption better when in reality you’re causing wear and tear by over-taxing the system while also drawing the most energy when the cost of energy is highest. It becomes a vicious cycle that not only reduces the useful life of your HVAC system but ends up increasing your energy cost in the long run.

In the digital era of the twenty-first century, the opportunity available is to take advantage of intelligent, automated control systems that rely on real-time data and predictive technology to more accurately and efficiently manage energy consumption. Manual setpoint management will simply never get you to where you want to be.