How much does it cost to run a commercial freezer?
February 1, 2019
Most food retail store owners understand how vital commercial walk-in freezers are to their business, but you may not know how much it costs to run a commercial freezer. The team at Energy Optimization is here to find the answers you’re looking for.
Energy Optimization has a proven track record of helping food retail stores with several types of tasks. Since 1995, our team has helped a variety of food retail businesses with their commercial freezer optimizations, maintenance and installations. This wealth of experience has taught us that having the highest possible level of knowledge about your refrigeration systems is critical to finding ways to reduce energy usage. For this reason, our team has set out to answer the question: How much does it cost to run a commercial freezer?
Statistics on how much it costs to run a commercial freezer
One thing that the Energy Optimization team wants to help you understand about how much it costs to run a commercial freezer is the importance of national statistics in answering this question. For one thing, it’s important for you to know how much electricity is used in the commercial sector. According to the Energy Information Administration (EIA), the United States commercial sector used about 1.35 trillion kilowatt hours of electricity in 2017. This number was approximately 36.6 percent of all the electricity produced in this year.
Another number that you should be aware of is the number of kilowatt hours used by commercial refrigeration systems, which include commercial freezers. The EIA also provides information about this number. For 2017, this agency calculated that refrigeration systems accounted for 14 percent of the electricity used in the commercial sector. This number combined with the total amount of electricity is important because it helps you see the big picture of how much energy is used in food retail stores.
One important statistic for calculating the electricity costs for your freezer is how much your power company charges for electricity. Using this number, it’s possible to determine your approximate average costs for different walk-in commercial freezers, and this is another piece of information that the EIA can provide you with. As of October 2018, the average cost of electricity in the U.S. was 10.66 cents per kilowatt hour according to this agency.
Using the average electricity cost, the square footage and cooling system voltage of various commercial freezers can help you generate some approximate cost numbers. According to U.S. Coolers:
- 6-by-6 freezers to 8-by-8 freezers use about $244 of electricity per month
- 8-by-10 freezers to 10-by-10 freezers use approximately $372 of electricity per month
- A 10-by-12 freezer uses about $436 of electricity every month
Now that you know about how much it costs to run a commercial freezer for a month, you can see how important it is to reduce your energy usage as much as possible. To find out all the ways Energy Optimization can help you minimize your electricity usage, contact us today.
