How Axiom Cloud Makes Cooling Systems Sustainable
As Axiom Cloud announces a seed round of funding led by Ulu Ventures, we thought it would be a good time to unpack and explain our lofty vision: “make the world’s cooling systems sustainable.”
To set the stage: cooling-related energy consumption is forecasted to grow by as much as 33-fold by 2100 compared to current levels. It is becoming increasingly clear that humanity cannot continue providing cooling services in the same way that we have since mechanical cooling was commercialized in the early 20th century. Cooling systems today are neither economically, environmentally, nor operationally sustainable. Specifically, the industry is on a collision course with qualified technician shortages, tightening refrigerant regulations, rising energy costs, inadequate power grids, and warming climates worldwide. We cannot remain on this path -- we need to change the strategy.
At Axiom, we believe that a better strategy exists today. In this post, we will discuss the economic, environmental, and operational problems threatening the cooling industry’s future. And, we will discuss how the proven playbook of the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI), and automation can be applied to help solve all three of these problems simultaneously, specifically for commercial refrigeration.
“Cooling systems today are neither economically, environmentally, nor operationally sustainable”
Economic Sustainability - Energy & Maintenance Costs
Many facility owners focus heavily on the upfront cost of their refrigeration systems during construction of new facilities or remodeling of existing ones, despite the fact that energy and maintenance account for up to 90% of the total lifecycle cost over a 20 year lifespan. Because of this focus on upfront cost by their customers, refrigeration OEMs have spent decades optimizing for CAPEX rather than around energy efficiency, robustness, or lifespan. As you might guess, this feedback loop results in the energy and maintenance portions of lifecycle costs getting even bigger over time. This is an unsustainable trend that only stands to worsen as energy costs continue to increase and equipment continues to age in these facilities.
Estimated 20 Year Lifecycle Cost of Commercial Refrigeration System
Energy Costs
The commercial refrigeration systems that the general public would be most familiar with are in grocery stores and supermarkets, which also happen to be the most electricity-intensive type of commercial building, consuming about 50 kWh per square foot each year. The average supermarket spends over $200,000 on energy every year, and about 60% of this cost is due to the operation of their inflexible, power-hungry refrigeration systems.
The main method of reducing energy costs at supermarkets has lately been to complete a retrocommissioning every 3-7 years to “tune up” the store and eliminate inefficiencies that have accrued over time. However, many of the energy and maintenance benefits of retrocommissioning can be undone the next time a technician is on-site and changes setpoints back to whatever makes he or she feel the most comfortable. With continuous commissioning enabled by IoT and intelligent software, these beneficial tweaks can be made at any time, and unapproved setpoint changes can be tracked and flagged.
As energy rates and demand charges continue to climb across North America (see a previous blog post for a full explainer on commercial energy bills), supermarkets will need to get a handle on their refrigeration loads if they want to simply keep costs constant over time. Fortunately, Axiom currently offers two apps that can add intelligence and reduce the energy costs of supermarket refrigeration systems:
Virtual Technician, which enhances energy efficiency by adjusting setpoints and avoiding detrimental changes to setpoints (e.g., “continuous commissioning”)
Virtual Battery, which decreases demand charges by predictively pre-cooling and load shedding low-temperature compressor racks
Maintenance Costs
As it has been for decades, the state-of-the-art for supermarket refrigeration management is still to react to high-urgency alarms as they arise and periodically perform preventative maintenance and manual refrigerant leak checks on critical equipment. Let’s tackle each of these processes individually.
Although reacting to high-urgency alarms (such as high case temperatures at a supermarket) as quickly as possible is obviously the right thing to do once the alarms are triggered, there are multiple ways this process can be improved. First, with a bit of intelligence, IoT, and artificial intelligence, many issues that currently plague store managers and technicians can be recognized and fixed automatically before they become critical, reducing the number of emergency service calls that need to be made in the first place. Second, when service calls are required, oftentimes a technician has little to no idea what they will encounter before they enter the store. With autonomous root cause analysis, technicians can be provided with highly contextual alerts that provide the probable root cause, urgency, location in the store, relevant historical operational data, and suggested actions (along with a list of other low-urgency issues they can address while they are onsite) before they are even dispatched. This helps to ensure that the right technician shows up at the right time with the right tools and replacement parts.
While preventative maintenance can certainly help reduce unplanned outages of a refrigeration system, there is often no data showing whether a particular preventative maintenance measure was worth the investment. In addition, despite the best efforts of facility managers and service providers, refrigerant leaks and unplanned equipment issues are still common occurrences at most facilities. Autonomous equipment monitoring, refrigerant charge monitoring, and failure prediction as provided by Virtual Technician automatically triages the list of possible preventative maintenance measures and quantifies the value of each in order to help provide the best return on investment.
Finally, having a better handle on refrigerant leaks can help supermarket owners avoid large business impacts and massive fines associated with improper leak management and reporting. As you can see in the figure below (EPA, 2009), catching a leak early, as can be done much more easily with continuous refrigerant charge calculations, can be the difference between a slight loss in efficiency and a large food spoilage event.
Environmental Sustainability - Indirect and Direct Emissions
Electricity Consumption (Indirect Emissions)
Cooling represents between 25% and 30% of global consumption of electricity, and refrigeration loads account for 14% of all electricity consumption in US commercial buildings. Unlike other thermal loads, refrigeration typically runs 24/7/365, which contributes to its reputation as a major energy hog. In addition, the amount of power consumed by refrigeration systems is highly dependent on ambient temperatures, meaning refrigeration systems use much more energy during the hottest afternoons and evenings of the year, as can be seen in the figure below (UNEP, 2019).
Unfortunately, this effect causes a major problem for the grid and the environment. The hottest evenings of the year also tend to be the times when the electricity grid is most constrained. Grid planners are increasingly stuck in an uncomfortable position: they are in charge of balancing the grid to avoid power outages, so they are forced to restrict interconnection of new intermittent solar and wind generation in favor of fossil fuel-burning power plants that can be dispatched on demand. In short, inflexible power-consuming systems (like refrigeration) are slowing the global economy’s transition to clean energy.
“Inflexible power-consuming systems (like refrigeration) are slowing the global economy’s transition to clean energy.”
Software and automation can unlock the hidden flexibility of low-temperature refrigeration systems, allowing loads to be shifted away from hours when the grid is in critical condition. By intelligently and safely pre-cooling and load shedding, Axiom’s Virtual Battery app transforms refrigeration systems from being one of the LEAST FLEXIBLE assets on the grid to one of the MOST FLEXIBLE. As a result, grocery stores and refrigerated warehouses can help to unlock barriers to higher penetrations of intermittent renewables (e.g., solar and wind), accelerating the global economy’s transition to a clean energy future.
Refrigerant Leakage (Direct Emissions)
When including both direct and indirect emissions, cooling is responsible for 8% of global greenhouse gas emissions. This is mainly because of the high global warming potentials (GWP’s) of the HFC’s that are commonly used as commercial refrigerants - one pound of R404a has the same impact on earth’s climate as 3,922 pounds of CO2!
To make matters worse, the US EPA and others reveal that the average refrigerant leak rate in retail grocery continues to hover around 25%/year (~1,000 pounds per store per year), damaging both the environment and each supermarket’s bottom line. Because of this combination of high GWP’s and high refrigerant leak rates, better refrigerant management has been ranked as one of the top 5 opportunities globally for combating climate change by Project Drawdown.
By detecting refrigerant leaks early and alerting facility managers when the total refrigerant charge is too low or too high, Axiom’s Virtual Technician app reduces the direct emissions of refrigeration systems.
Operational Sustainability - Shortage of Qualified Technicians
According to the National Comfort Institute, today’s HVAC/R technician workforce numbers around 260,000 people in the United States, while there are about 80,000 unfilled HVAC/R technician jobs. On top of that, the industry is “suffering a net technician loss of about 20,000 technicians per year”. By 2025, the projected technician shortage may be upwards of 180,000 people. Operations leaders in retail grocery and refrigerated warehouses often cite the shortage of qualified technicians as their single-greatest pain point.
This is obviously an unsustainable situation, and an existential threat to facilities that rely on refrigeration to protect valuable products like food or medicine. The problem is compounded during heat waves, as the number of service calls spikes when cooling systems are running at (or beyond) their rated capacities. Increasingly, the ominous question arises: will a qualified technician show up if I have an emergency cooling outage during the next heat wave?
“Increasingly, the ominous question arises: will a qualified technician show up if I have an emergency cooling outage during the next heat wave?”
Software and automation can be used to help alleviate these issues in the following ways:
Reduce the total number of service calls by diagnosing and fixing many problems automatically without humans in the loop.
Avoid many service calls by empowering store personnel to fix simple issues (such as closing a walk-in cooler door or rearranging product to unblock airflow in a display case).
Predict and fix problems before they cause unexpected cooling outages, reducing the number of service calls during heat waves when technicians are in short supply.
Enable technicians to intelligently triage problems at many buildings and prioritize the most urgent/critical/valuable jobs during emergency situations.
Perhaps most importantly, it can enable the most effective and qualified technicians to remotely support dozens (if not hundreds) of stores at a time, rather than driving to stores one at a time.
All of this is possible with the proper IoT, cloud, and AI infrastructure.
Axiom Cloud exists to make the world’s cooling systems sustainable. We are starting by tackling commercial refrigeration with our Facilities Analyzer, Virtual Technician, and Virtual Battery apps. To learn more about our vision, mission, and guiding principles, visit our About Axiom page. Or, subscribe to our newsletter so we can keep you updated with the latest about Axiom!
Amrit is the CEO and Cofounder of Axiom Cloud
Axiom Cloud’s mission is to use software and automation to transform how the world’s cooling systems are powered, operated, and maintained, in order to generate significant climate and financial impact. Axiom’s team of refrigeration experts, data scientists, energy nerds, and software developers solves retail grocery’s biggest energy and maintenance challenges by layering intelligence onto their existing refrigeration systems. If you’re interested in learning more about our mission or our apps for commercial refrigeration, please contact us today.