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Energy & Efficiency Case Study

Big supermarket chain achieves positive ROI in 3 months

It is interesting how things you disregard on a daily basis influence energy consumption so much. Inspiring Software opened our eyes for a lot of issues.

Luca Pavarino, Facilities Manager

Customer Profile

Who is our customer? A consumers’ cooperative, operating the biggest supermarket chain in Italy with headquarters in Bologna. The system operates with 115 consumers' cooperatives of various sizes, with 1,444 shops, 56,682 employers, more than 7,429,847 members, and an annual revenue of €12.9 billion. Inspiring Software did a successful project with the Adriatic District of this supermarket chain. The district handles more than 200 million loads per year, employs 750 staff and has a 4.7 billion euro turnover. The Adriatic District has an annual electricity consumption of more than 17,500,000 kWh. Our project was implemented on 6 sites consisting of 12 distribution centres: 5 for generic food, 3 for frozen food and 4 for perishable food.

Customer Needs

Over a span of 6 years the supermarket chain had been trying to implement long-term energy efficiency policies and quick ways to evaluate their

effectiveness. They were struggling with identifying causes for irregular energy consumption and were not happy with their overall energy costs. By speak-ing with the energy manager of the chain we concluded that the Adriatic District needed to (1) minimize losses and energy waste, (2) buy energy at the lowest price and (3) implement a long-term energy management system. They asked us to find out what was their pattern of energy consumption and to show them the analytical techniques for assessing energy use and improvement actions.

Inspiring Software’s project goal was to achieve posi-tive results in less than 1 year.

The Inspiring Software Solution

Before Inspiring Software’s solution, the only moni-toring system the Adriatic District had was bills and the analysis of deviations from budgeted energy costs.

FOOD

Via Enrico Fermi, 5ASalò, BS 25087, ItalyTel. +39 0365 520098www.inspiringsoftware.comintsupport@inspiringsoftware.com

Inspiringsoftware

®

Inspiring Software International

Customer Profile

Who is our customer? A consumers’ cooperative, operating the biggest supermarket chain in Italy with headquarters in Bologna. The system operates with 115 consumers' cooperatives of various sizes, with 1,444 shops, 56,682 employers, more than 7,429,847 members, and an annual revenue of €12.9 billion. Inspiring Software did a successful project with the Adriatic District of this supermarket chain. The district handles more than 200 million loads per year, employs 750 staff and has a 4.7 billion euro turnover. The Adriatic District has an annual electricity consumption of more than 17,500,000 kWh. Our project was implemented on 6 sites consisting of 12 distribution centres: 5 for generic food, 3 for frozen food and 4 for perishable food.

Customer Needs

Over a span of 6 years the supermarket chain had been trying to implement long-term energy efficiency policies and quick ways to evaluate their

effectiveness. They were struggling with identifying causes for irregular energy consumption and were not happy with their overall energy costs. By speak-ing with the energy manager of the chain we concluded that the Adriatic District needed to (1) minimize losses and energy waste, (2) buy energy at the lowest price and (3) implement a long-term energy management system. They asked us to find out what was their pattern of energy consumption and to show them the analytical techniques for assessing energy use and improvement actions.

Inspiring Software’s project goal was to achieve posi-tive results in less than 1 year.

The Inspiring Software Solution

Before Inspiring Software’s solution, the only moni-toring system the Adriatic District had was bills and the analysis of deviations from budgeted energy costs.

That is why the first software solution we proposed was Consumption Monitoring. We implemented monitoring through one single meter per site ( ENEL meter). Next we implemented Energy Modelling, which would help the supermarket chain control their energy budget and energy consumption. We created an energy model for each site. The created models were 2 types: (1) forecasting models - allow to estimate future consumption; and (2) controlling models - allow for constant control of consumption by comparing forecasted results with the actual ones.

A crucial part of the energy modelling process is identifying energy drivers – those are the factors that influence consumption. In fact this was the customer’s main problem. We had a limited number of available energy drivers (outside temperature and goods movement) but still managed to create accu-rate models and identify causes for abnormal consumption. For example, from 5-26 Jan 2012 we proved that the compressors‘ set point at the Forlì site was set too high. By decreasing it we avoided the partitioning of compressors, thus improving their performance. During this detection we reduced the site consumption by 15,000 kWh. Furthermore, on 2 Feb, the Monitoring & Control software identified inefficiencies in the refrigeration facilities of the Forlì and San Vito sites. By 10 Feb the issues were fixed which resulted in reduction of consumption by 73,000 kWh. Finally, on 16 Feb, the monitoring software detected extremely high consumption in the Reggio Emilia site and immediately sent a notifi-cation to the facility manager. He investigated the cause and found out it was a maintenance problem of a compressor. By 25 Feb the problem was fixed and consumption was brought back to normal. This resulted in further 30,000 kWh of savings.

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RESULTS• A system for real-time detection of energy wastes and inefficiency;

• 19,000 € in 3 months as savings from reduced electricity consumption;

• 80% reduction in time needed to create an energy budget;

• 9% lower maintenance costs due to RCEM;

• positive ROI in less than 3 months;

• Establishment of a long-term Energy Man-agement Policy with effective and verifiable practices.

Thanks to this project, which started on 12 Dec 2011 and finished on 1 Mar 2012, the Adriatic District of this supermarket chain was able to:

create their energy budget faster – from 3-4 weeks, now it took them only 3-4 days;understand their pattern of energy consumption;by monitoring energy consumption, intercept mainte-nance problems before they occurred. This resulted in 9% lower maintenance costs;implement a Reliability-Centered Energy Management (RCEM) system;implement and verify a long-term energy manage-ment system of real-time Monitoring & Control;reduce energy consumption in less than 3 months by 118,000 kWh which meant savings of more than €19,000;know, verify and control the return on every energy efficiency action;report savings in Q1 of 2012, compared to no savings in Q1 of 2011.

Inspiring Software helped the supermarket chain get a positive return on their investment in less than 3 months, compared to the initial target of 1 year. This and the functionalities of our software convinced them to roll out the project to other sites of the entire coop-erative.

Via Enrico Fermi, 5ASalò, BS 25087, ItalyTel. +39 0365 520098www.inspiringsoftware.comintsupport@inspiringsoftware.com

Inspiringsoftware

®

Inspiring Software International