Energy Management and Energy Savings at Supermarkets

Energy Saving in Supermarkets and Usage of Energy Management Platform

COVID19 is an unprecedented challenge for all businesses. Some business has been consuming more energy and some business consuming less as they locked down their workplaces. Hence, Energy consumption has been reduced for offices by about almost 50 % while on the other hand energy consumption has been increased by about 20 % in our homes according to Energysavingathomes. This shows us the importance of the energy management.

We will be lighting up energy consumption trends in our blog series to show you the effect of Corona on our business as well as investigating how much we could save if we change some of our consumption behaviors and use energy management platforms. We have pulled some data from the inavitas energy-intelligence platform that provides real-time energy data to provide savings and to increase energy efficiency for businesses and homes. inavitas energy-intelligence platform currently monitors more than 2000 supermarkets in different sizes and different regions.

We looked at supermarkets where the population is quite high. In general, when we investigate about more than 50 various supermarkets, we noticed that the energy consumption has been increased by an average of 16% and by up to 32% in some places since January. April is still early to talk about as you can see in the below graph from the inavitas energy-intelligence platform.
This is a very easily noticeable outcome of COVID-19. Some industries worked hard to meet the demand that

When we randomly select any weekday from March, we can see the highest consumption period is between 9 am and 8:00 pm.

When we focus on loads that sucks energy the most during this period, data clearly shows us that energy consumption of lights has risen significantly after COVID-19 which is indicated by the green and blue columns. Besides, drinks fridge energy consumption has been risen to about 12 kWh in March.

However, there is a light still at the end of this tunnel and still possible to save on your energy consumption by managing your energy.

How to save energy in the supermarket?

We selected the below case study to show how energy saving is possible with minor changes.
In this case, firstly, let’s see what happened in this supermarket and then what actions have been taken, and so what was the result.
This graph presents the load distribution of the supermarket without any action that has been taken. The most consuming loads are as listed below
1. Air conditions as 20-25% of the total consumption,
2. Fridges as 10-15 % of the total consumption,
3. Sockets as 5-10 % of the total consumption,

This supermarket started using an inavitas energy-intelligence platform to monitor and manage its energy.

Results:

Action 1

Optimum working temperature of the supermarket has been identified with the help of sensors data which is between 20 °C and 25 °C and the temperature has been controlled by the inavitas energy-intelligence platform to provide more energy savings.

Action 2

As the below graphs show HVAC consumption was about 6-7 kWh. By controlling HVAC remotely, the consumption of HVAC has been reduced to 0-0.2 kWh after working hours.

As the below graphs show HVAC consumption was about 6-7 kWh. By controlling HVAC remotely, the consumption of HVAC has been reduced to 0-0.2 kWh after working hours.

Overall, an average of 15% of saving/month has been achieved by monitoring and managing loads in this supermarket.
As we can see in this example, After COVID-19, it is very clear that some businesses have been working very hard to cope with the increased demand in this challenging time and this caused the increase in energy cost but still, it is possible to save with relatively small adjustments and with efficient energy management solutions.

About inavitas

inavitas is a real-time energy intelligence platform is energy management platform that is customized to reduce energy costs and increase energy efficiency, from distribution companies to renewable power plants, from businesses to homes, where energy is generated, consumed and distributed.

inavitas enables renewable energy plants to prevent losses in energy production and digitilize maintenance processes. It makes business and homes to avoid the burden of monthly invoice tracking and to save energy with strict controls. It also provides software support that helps distribution companies to manage electricity effectively.