THE CHALLENGE
A multi-national food and agricultural products company operating a 50,000+ sq. ft. protein storage warehouse in California noticed gradually rising utility costs, which had a significant effect
Closeup shooting hand of worker with clipboard checking goods in freezing room or warehouse
upon the operating cost of the facility. It was noted that the largest user of energy was the refrigeration system, which had been declining in performance and efficiency over time, partly due to the facility’s inability to retain onsite refrigeration or energy engineering personnel. Com-pounding the rising energy costs, the facility was not able to dedicate resources toward mitigating growing and changing demand charges on their utility bills.
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THE SOLUTION
The warehouse operator reached out to VaCom’s Performance Monitoring Service Team, whose Refrigeration and Energy Engineers accessed the facility’s refrigeration control system via a secure connection with VaCom’s EnergyDashboard tool. System performance data was continuously measured, trended, and analyzed. Multiple energy-saving and performance improvements opportunities were identified. Opportunities ranged from equipment failures, behavioral changes, to set point changes. Each opportunity was furthermore analyzed financially and ranked according to its payback and criticality to operations.
During periodic review meetings, all stakeholders, including the facility operator, their refrigeration contractor, and the VaCom Engineers, each opportunity was assessed and the team formed a planned approach to address each opportunity for improvement. EnergyDashboard continued to measure the system’s performance and the results of their work was manifested in the data.