Electrical
Axiom Exergy to slash supermarkets’ bills with refrigeration battery
April 22, 2015 - Energy storage company Axiom Exergy says it has a new “breakthrough” product designed to slice the costs of refrigeration for supermarkets.
April 22, 2015 By Renée Francoeur
The refrigeration battery allows commercial buildings with high refrigeration-based energy loads to “store refrigeration” for later use and reduces peak electricity demand by up to 40%, according to Axiom. This transforms refrigeration systems into “large-scale, cloud-connected, smart energy storage resources”, the company added.
“Supermarkets and cold-storage facilities must keep perishable food at a constant temperature around the clock, which means they must run power-hungry refrigeration equipment even when electricity prices skyrocket during the peak hours of the afternoon. Until now, this has been a huge, unavoidable cost that erodes their razor-thin profit margins—that’s where we come in,” said Amrit Robbins, president of Axiom Exergy. “Our technology offers a significantly lower installed cost than anything else on the market, a system lifespan of 30 years—many times longer than traditional batteries—and the ability to shift multiple hours of cooling baseload.”
The refrigeration battery stores refrigeration by freezing a tank of water with common additives at night when electricity is inexpensive. Then, it uses the frozen tanks to provide cooling during afternoon peak hours when electricity is expensive, enabling compressors and condensers to be turned off.
It can also provide backup refrigeration for 6-12 hours, protecting supermarkets from business interruption risk and significant food spoilage costs due to power outages.
The battery is a “plug-and-play” retrofit that doesn’t require modifications to existing refrigeration systems, added Axiom Exergy.
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