Many convenience store, restaurant and grocery store owners believe that increasing commercial refrigeration energy savings has to be a difficult process. However, this isn’t always the case. In fact, there’s a team that can help you perform one simple energy retrofit to dramatically increase your energy savings.

Our Energy Optimization team has been helping businesses with energy reduction strategies for the past 24 years. We’re dedicated to helping your business find customized and effective solutions that lead to energy usage reduction. In fact, we’ve successfully completed more than $750 million in energy reduction projects nationwide. One thing we’ve learned from these projects is that retrofitting to variable frequency drives can significantly increase commercial refrigeration energy savings.

Why are variable frequency drives so good at boosting commercial refrigeration energy savings?

Variable frequency drives are also known as variable speed motors or variable speed drives. These drives are used in electro-mechanical systems, such as in commercial refrigeration, and they’re designed to control alternating current (AC) motor speed. The word “variable” is used to describe these components because they can run at multiple speeds rather than operate at one continuous speed. It’s this ability that makes variable speed motors a great way to boost the energy savings of a business.

When commercial refrigeration systems use constant speed motors, the motor draws the same amount of electricity at all times. Variable speed drives run at different speeds depending on the requirements of the refrigeration system. This means that they can use less energy when your systems aren’t working as hard. In fact, one source claims that variable speed motors use more than 60% less energy than constant speed motors.

This energy savings can be multiplied simply by replacing all the constant speed drives in your commercial refrigeration systems with variable speed drives. In addition, new variable speed motors offer other benefits that may improve system energy efficiency, such as:

• Upgraded semiconductor switches
• More efficient drive topologies
• Improved simulation and control techniques
• Upgraded control hardware and software

Are you ready to find out how much your commercial refrigeration energy consumption could be with variable frequency drive retrofits? Energy Optimization is ready to help you.

Contact our team today for more information or to schedule an appointment.