Copeland seals US demand response deal

Mar 28, 2024

USA: Copeland has announced a partnership with Enersponse, a US provider of distributed energy resource (DER) management services for commercial and industrial customers.

This collaboration is said to offer a unique chance for food retailers to improve their energy conservation efforts through involvement in demand response initiatives that assist in stabilising the power grid during times of high electricity consumption.

Enersponse’s intelligent automation system sends a secure signal to reduce electricity when the power grid is at risk of outages or when energy prices spike. In addition to stabilizing the grid, these programmes provide a passive revenue stream through incentives and automated demand response (ADR) rebates, decrease energy consumption and utility bills, and reduce carbon emissions, which supports meeting corporate sustainability and environmental, social and governance objectives.

Copeland control solutions will deliver the energy management and ADR deployment. The Copeland E3 supervisory control is used to enable web-accessible control over critical building and refrigeration systems, including compressor groups, condensers and walk-in units, HVAC and lighting systems. The Copeland ProAct Connect+ enterprise management software is used to provide near real-time access to manage multi-site food retail operations. This provides access to rich data to perform root cause analysis and prescriptive, corrective actions to help save time and costs. The Copeland CC200 case controller is also a part of this, and communicates with the E3 supervisory control and Copeland’s companion Cold Chain Connect mobile app.

Copeland and Enersponse solutions together allow grocers to create customised parameters for responding to energy demand events, according to their specific requirements, ensuring critical operations, food safety, customer and employee comfort remain unaffected.

“Customers have the power to allow small adjustments to heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration systems and refrigeration temperatures or to dim lights during high-demand periods. Enersponse simplifies the entire process, from program enrolment to the end of a power reduction event and provides automation through a secure connection to the current Copeland building controls to make participation effortless,” said James McPhail, CEO of Enersponse.

Copeland and Enersponse have been collaborating with major grocery store chains in California for over a year, overseeing their demand response participation. These food retailers have obtained rebates to cover the cost of upgrading Copeland hardware and software, such as supervisory and building management controllers, AC and refrigeration compressors, and enterprise monitoring and building controls. The grocers have enrolled in an auto-demand response programme and are receiving ADR rebates.

In 2022, one of the grocers that enrolled in the auto-demand response programme is said to have managed to avoid approximately 220,000 lbs. of carbon emissions and securing ADR rebates totalling over $500,000.