AI in retail grocery: Virtual Technician & Virtual Battery in action

Here at Axiom, we’ve been busy developing and deploying our IoT platform, which applies AI to existing refrigeration systems to add power flexibility, reduce unplanned system downtime, and more.

We are excited to announce the release of two new case studies, which highlight its two main apps: Virtual Technician and Virtual Battery. Axiom has brought AI to the underserved refrigeration industry!

How Virtual Technician reduces maintenance headache

The Virtual Technician service provides the same value as a refrigeration technician with a data science degree who has been assigned to the store around the clock. At this site in Northern California, Virtual Technician identified a compressor floodback issue (i.e. liquid refrigerant droplets entering the compressors) that the existing alarm strategy missed.

Below are the steps Virtual Technician takes to help customers save time and money through predictive maintenance:

1) Detect problems early - Unlike traditional threshold alarms, Virtual Technician accounts for variations in weather, heat load, and more when monitoring refrigeration systems, allowing for anomalies to be detected much earlier.

2) Diagnose the root cause - Rather than simply sending hot case alarms, Virtual Technician is often able to detect the root cause of an issue before sending any alerts.

3) Notify maintenance provider with specific corrective action - If the problem cannot be fixed autonomously, Virtual Technician notifies the system’s maintenance provider with specific, actionable insights about the issue.

4) Ensure corrective action was taken - By continuously monitoring the system, Virtual Technician is able to ensure the proper corrective action was taken and will send further alerts if the issue persists.

Click below to see how Virtual Technician identified and prevented a potentially catastrophic failure at a Northern California supermarket.

How Virtual Battery saves customers money

This customer was looking for a lightweight way to add power flexibility to their building to significantly reduce their demand charges and therefore utility bills. They also wanted to take advantage of California’s demand response programs as a new source of revenue. Axiom Cloud Inc. implemented its IoT Platform at the site, which unlocked the built- in flexibility of the low temperature refrigeration system, effectively turning it into a battery.

The graph above shows an actual day of Virtual Battery operations - below are the steps taken to generate savings for customers:

1) Pre-cool - By running compressors more often than they normally would be run this early in the day, Virtual Battery effectively "pre-cools" the low-temp cases in preparation for a hot afternoon.

2) Load shed - By cycling individual compressors on and off as necessary, Virtual Battery prevents the building load from going above the forecasted optimal target of 230 kW.

3) Demand Charge reduction - By significantly decreasing the rack load (yellow trace) during this 15-minute interval, Virtual Battery prevented a building demand spike (gray trace) that would have increased demand charges for the entire billing period.

4) Normal operation - Once the hottest part of the day has passed, Virtual Battery allows the refrigeration system to resume normal operation.

Click below to see how Virtual Battery uses AI to provide the same value streams as a 75 kWh lithium-ion battery - without the expensive hardware.

Axiom Cloud Inc. uses Artificial Intelligence to transform the world’s thermal systems into intelligent, flexible, and resilient assets. If you are interested in learning more, contact us today.