The Ecomanagement solution enabled a grocery store to move away from static and excessive operating modes of engineering systems towards smart, data-driven control. As a result, energy costs were significantly reduced, food storage conditions improved, and customer comfort enhanced.
At the same time, the risk of food write-offs caused by refrigeration equipment failures and temperature deviations was substantially reduced.
At the same time, the risk of food write-offs caused by refrigeration equipment failures and temperature deviations was substantially reduced.
How Grocery Stores Can Reduce Energy Costs Without Compromising Product Storage Conditions or Customer Comfort?
Facility and Initial Conditions
Facility type
Grocery store
Area
4,000 m²
Initial energy consumption
150,000 kWh
The store operates under continuous load and imposes strict requirements on:
Food storage temperature regimes
Indoor climate in the sales area
Uninterrupted operation of refrigeration equipment and display cases
Any errors in managing engineering systems directly affect product quality and customer comfort, creating significant business risks. Therefore, energy reduction is only possible through a precise, controlled approach that eliminates such risks.
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Context and Key Challenges
In grocery retail, energy consumption is driven by several major system groups:
1
Air conditioning and ventilation in the sales area
2
Control of the central refrigeration plant (CRP)
3
Refrigerated display cases and cold rooms
4
Lighting of sales and back-of-house areas
5
Air curtains at entrances and goods delivery zones
At the same time:
Sales floors and storage areas have different climate requirements
Some equipment operates in static modes, without accounting for real load or external conditions
This leads to excessive system loads and increased energy costs that do not deliver additional business value.
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Refrigeration failures are particularly critical: they represent not only a technical issue but also direct financial losses. As a result, a key objective of the project was not only to reduce energy consumption, but also to enable early detection of deviations in refrigeration system performance and prevent emergency scenarios.
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When temperature regimes are violated, products become unfit for sale and must be written off. The lack of real-time monitoring and fallback scenarios increases the risk of assortment losses and negatively affects customer loyalty.
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Deploying the Monitoring and Control System
Monitoring Implementation
To move from assumptions to data-driven control, a monitoring and automation system was deployed with the following configuration:
170 energy consumption sensors
64 monitored pieces of equipment
15 air temperature and humidity sensors (10 in the sales area, 5 in back-of-house zones)
27 gateways for connecting refrigeration equipment
1 controller for the central refrigeration plant
14 gateways for air conditioning systems
8 CO₂ and illuminance sensors
18 motion sensors
8 relay modules
This configuration made it possible to collect data and gain a detailed view of energy consumption across all key systems and zones within the store.
From Monitoring to Smart Control
Based on the collected data, a digital operating model of the store was built, taking into account:
Technological requirements for product storage
Customer traffic in the sales area
Operating schedules of storage zones
External weather conditions
Intelligent control and predictive analytics algorithms were then implemented to automatically regulate:
Air conditioning and ventilation systems
Operation of the refrigeration unit
Lighting in sales and auxiliary areas
Control is performed in real time and continuously adapts to the actual load of the facility.
Where Energy Losses Occurred — and What Changed
Climate Control and Ventilation
Optimisation of air conditioning and ventilation delivered the greatest savings.
Result:
Energy savings of 16,563 kWh per month without compromising customer comfort.
Central Refrigeration Unit
The CRU was shifted from fixed operating modes to smart control.
Result:
Energy consumption reduced by approximately 7,300 kWh per month, while maintaining stable product storage temperatures.
Lighting
Use of motion sensors and schedule-based control.
Result:
Energy savings of 4,581 kWh per month.
Air Curtains
Use of temperature sensors, monitoring of proper door closure, and schedule-based operation.
Result:
Energy savings of over 6,207 kWh per month across three air curtains.
It is important to note that the Ecomanagement solution does not eliminate manual control of engineering systems. At the customer’s request, staff can switch to manual modes at any time and control equipment directly, without restrictions imposed by the system.
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Example of manual equipment control
Overall Impact
Total energy consumption reduced by 23%,
equivalent to savings of approximately 34,651 kWh per month.
equivalent to savings of approximately 34,651 kWh per month.
Additional benefits:
Optimisation of all key engineering systems
Separate climate control for sales and storage areas
Stable compliance with product storage temperature requirements
Reduction of CO₂ emissions by approximately 128.9 tonnes per year
All changes were implemented without staff intervention and without any impact on the customer experience.
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Contact us
Call us: +7 (495) 741-93-30
Email us: info@ecomanagement.pro
Email us: info@ecomanagement.pro
Energy efficiency management
Skolkovo Resident
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