COLD STORAGE, A FLEXIBILITY AND ENERGY EFFICIENCY SOLUTION

Energy needs for cold production are constantly increasing. In France, the annual electricity consumption within this sector exceeds 15 TWh. Energy storage has become an important way for increasing the flexibility of final energy use and production systems. In order to tackle the problem of cold storage adoption, a software tools has been developed to estimate financial and energy gains if a cool storage facility is installed within a facility (mainly for positive temperature warehouses). The purpose of this tool is to allow industrials to have an objective tool which compares several technologies, and to quickly evaluate the benefits of cold storage solutions. The tool uses physical energy conservation laws applied to the cooling and storage systems, the electrical load profile of the industrial site, an estimated cold storage capacity, as well as the electricity tariff. Different scenarios of storage charge and discharge are simulated. Different study cases showed cool storage allows considerable energy savings, particularly in Agro-food industry and Supermarkets. Added to this, temperature drift in the stored products and the potential impact on stored product quality is also being investigated.