How can you save energy in your grocery store?
March 2, 2019
One of the most common questions grocery store owners ask is, “How can I save energy in my grocery store?” This is an insightful question because saving energy can lead to significant cost savings for your store. However, you may not know how to get the energy savings you’re looking for.
Our team at Energy Optimization may be able to help you find the energy savings you’ve been searching for. We’ve been helping businesses in the commercial sector with energy optimization services for more than 20 years. In that time, our team has helped our clients make more than $750 million in energy optimizing improvements, and we’ve also helped them find significant utility rebates from their energy retrofits. One service we offer that may help you save energy in your grocery store is our variable frequency drive retrofit service.
Updates that allow variable frequency drives to help save energy in grocery stores
Our Energy Optimization team knows retrofitting your refrigeration systems with variable frequency drives may help you save energy in your grocery store. However, you may not know why these drives have the potential to reduce your energy usage.
Variable frequency drives, or variable speed drives, are a type of adjustable-speed motor used in electro-mechanical systems like refrigeration systems. Our team knows these drives are used to control alternating current (AC) motor speed and torque by changing the voltage being used to run the motor. One of our variable speed drives is actually made up of three parts, which are an AC motor, a drive controller and a user interface.
Our team knows that variable frequency drives offer a huge advantage over traditional fixed frequency drives. Their ability to vary how much electricity they use based on refrigeration system requirements is the basis for this advantage. By conforming to the needs of your systems rather than using the same amount of electricity all the time, variable speed drives use significantly less electricity.
For this reason, our team encourages you to upgrade from fixed frequency drives to variable frequency drives. However, we also encourage you to use our retrofitting service to upgrade older variable speed drives. In fact, new drives may help create even more savings than older versions because they offer improvements to:
- Semiconductor switches
- Drive topologies
- Simulation and control techniques
- Control hardware
- Drive software
Are you interested in learning more about how variable frequency drive retrofits or other energy retrofits may help you save energy in your grocery store? Contact our team today for more information about our services or to schedule an appointment.
