ADR for Refrigeration
Offset costs of programming energy management controls to pre-cool, shift refrigeration schedules, program refrigeration pumpdown sequences and reduce ancillary loads.
Project Profiles
Winery Sheds Load and Saves
Measures: Manage refrigeration
Program Incentive: $25,000
Load Shed: 210 kW
Description: This Bay Area winery enrolled four sites for automated demand response, totaling 380,000 sq. ft. of bottling and cellar storage. By automating control of refrigeration components such as compressors, evaporators, cooling towers, and glycol pumps, the customer was able to participate in DR events without impacting operations or product quality. Participation in the program improved the customer’s profitability and advanced their sustainability goals.
Automation Helps Produce Distributor Reduce Costs
Measures: Global temperature adjustment with pre-cooling
Program Incentive: $66,200
Load Shed: 331 kW
Description: This Silicon Valley fruit distributor automated what was previously a labor intensive DR participation process, capturing operational and labor efficiency. The distributor also maximized ongoing incentives from regular participation in their DR program.
Produce Distributor Increases Operational Efficiency
Measures: Pre-cooling, reduce main refrigeration by 75% and shutoff battery chargers
Program Incentive: $40,800
Load Shed: 179 kW
Description: This Central Valley produce distributor was seeking controls upgrades to further improve energy and operational efficiency at their 36,000 square feet facility. PG&E’s program covered 100 percent of the project costs, and automated what had been a manual (and labor intensive) participation process. The customer used pre-cooling to ensure that the product quality of delicate fruits such as peaches, grapes, and nectarines would not be affected. Once precooled, the facility turned down the evaporator and allowed the thermal mass of the building to maintain adequate temperatures during the event.
Common strategies for temporarily reducing load for demand response:
Food Processing
- Stop ancillary equipment (lighting, air compressor, other refrigeration equipment)
- Shift production to run later
- Produce or store extra product for packaging the next day
Cold Storage
- Shutoff or reduce refrigeration load
- Shutoff evaporator fan or reduce the speed
- Reduce or shutoff unnecessary lighting
- Secure forklift charging (see battery charging)
- Pre-cooling (option with day-ahead notice)
- Stop Ancillary equipment (lighting, misc equipment)
Get more info on ADR Program for Refrigeration customers:
- Application Information Requirements for Refrigerated Warehouse Curtailment