ACR Journal

October | November 2020 REFRIGERATION 24 Volume 6 No.6 Building back greener does not need to break the bank Jason Murphy is Managing Director of Global Retail at IMS Evolve, a UK-based IoT company specialising in energy-saving software specifically for assets, including refrigeration and HVAC appliances, in the food retail sector. The world is going green. A silver lining of the past few months during the pandemic has been a significantly reduced carbon footprint, both from the general public and across almost every industry. As we exit lockdown, every sector across the UK is seeking ways to continue reducing their emissions as the nation looks to ‘build back greener’. The food retail sector is no dierent, but the decarbonisation of our supermarkets will prove tougher than most other areas. With supermarket refrigeration alone representing 1% of the UK’s total energy use (and 12% of carbon emissions), how can the sector adapt to a greener world and reduce its carbon footprint in an economically viable way? In the US, the average 50,000 sq ft retailer spends around $90,000 a year on energy costs. It follows that reducing energy consumption should also save food retailers quite a bit of money. Energy e‹cient infrastructures, from specialist low-consumption lighting systems to ultra-e‹cient air conditioning, contribute to a reduction in energy bills however, these large-scale infrastructural upgrades are becoming increasingly less viable in the post- lockdown era. As margins become even tighter, supermarkets simply cannot aord to rip and replace existing store assets with new equipment. Total store transformation However, this doesn’t mean supermarkets have to choose between tightening their belts or going green to help save the environment. The key to decarbonisation, not just within refrigeration but right across the food retail industry, doesn’t lie with costly new infrastructure. Rather, significant energy e‹ciencies can be gained and sustained through a total store digital transformation. This sounds costly. Digital transformation brings to mind images of robots whizzing up supermarket aisles or converting the back storeroom to house a supercomputer. The truth is slightly less science fiction, however the transformative results suggest that digitalisation really is the future of the food retail industry. Through the implementation of an Internet of Things (IoT) solution, a virtual software layer is created that connects assets such as refrigeration units, air conditioning units and lighting systems. This machine integration layer collects and processes hundreds of thousands of data points from sensors, controls and systems across entire estates, monitoring and optimising the performance of machines in real-time. As well as significantly improving e‹ciencies and in-store experience, this supports and automates predictive and preventative maintenance regimes to avoid equipment downtime, which can have a significant impact on food wastage. It’s an approach that is already being used by a number of forward-thinking organisations to reduce avoidable loss of food and achieve significant reductions in reactive maintenance costs. It can even bring down the number of customer complaints through improvements in food quality. Crucially, the real-time data generated by these interconnected assets also supports a comprehensive energy management strategy. This works by incorporating a range of dierent metrics, from seasonal fluctuations to product location and equipment reliability, meaning that a store can radically reduce its annual power consumption. That’s a lot of data Real-time monitoring across entire food retail estates results in the generation of a lot of data. Traditionally, this would need to be analysed manually to identify ine‹ciencies and make recommendations about how to optimise assets. Now, however, sophisticated IoT software can drive automation and remotely take corrective action on assets based on the collected data to continually ensure they are working as e‹ciently as possible, without the need for manual intervention. In addition, this data is processed on site using edge-based gateway devices that only pushes relevant and actionable data to the cloud. But how is any of this possible? In a world of complex, multi-layered and interconnected technology, the implementation of an IoT solution is dependent on its ability to operate independently of the immediate systems and