Keep It Cool: Real-time Monitoring of Convenience Store Refrigeration Systems
Regulated energy efficiency services are in the business of responding to customer needs, delivering cost-effective clean-energy solutions while meeting regulatory performance targets. Energy efficiency programs’ commercial customers also frequently follow a business model of responding to needs, especially operational needs, as they arise.
But what happens when those customers’ business objectives could shift from a responsive—or more accurately, reactive—service model to a proactive one?
Efficiency Vermont’s "Keep It Cool" project shows the benefits to customers when they adopt this approach. By using a combination of well-targeted data analytics and with an objective of avoiding unexpected equipment failure in stores that rely on refrigerated cases and other spaces, Efficiency Vermont has identified three potential cost and service advantages to its customers:
- Pre-empting technology and service delivery failures saves money and reduces food spoilage.
- Performing real-time energy efficiency with data visualizations is of high value to the customer in identifying energy efficiency opportunities and avoiding equipment failures.
- Creating a trusted relationship among the customer, energy efficiency staff, and mechanical contractors frees the customer to attend to other operational improvements.