Artificial intelligence could become an important tool for cutting energy consumption in grocery stores and cold-storage facilities by making existing refrigeration systems operate more efficiently, according to Axiom Cloud CEO Amrit Robbins.
Axiom Cloud works with large grocery retailers and cold-storage companies, using operating data already produced by refrigeration equipment to identify energy waste, predict maintenance problems and detect refrigerant leaks.
“Refrigeration is the elephant in the room for these folks,” Robbins told Energi Media. He said refrigeration accounts for more than half of energy consumption and about 90 per cent of maintenance service calls for many customers.
Modern refrigeration systems can contain hundreds or thousands of sensors connected to central controllers, but Robbins said much of that data traditionally remains inside the facility and is never analyzed before being overwritten.
Axiom moves the data into the cloud and analyzes system behaviour for signs of problems.
One use is identifying equipment that continues to provide cooling but is consuming substantially more electricity than necessary. Another is predictive maintenance designed to prevent emergency outages.
Robbins pointed to compressors, which circulate refrigerant through a facility, as an example. Rather than simply predicting when a compressor will reach the end of its life, Axiom looks for operating conditions that can damage the equipment, such as liquid entering a compressor designed for gas or deteriorating electrical performance.
Changing a set point or correcting another component can sometimes prevent the failure entirely, Robbins said. He estimated a replacement compressor can cost about US$9,000 before labour, downtime and potential product losses are included.
Axiom also focuses on detecting refrigerant leaks. Robbins said refrigerants can cost US$30 to US$40 per pound and that a typical U.S. supermarket can leak 800 to 1,200 pounds annually. He said some commonly used refrigerants also have greenhouse impacts thousands of times greater than carbon dioxide on a pound-for-pound basis.
For customers, however, Robbins said the sales pitch is primarily financial rather than environmental.
“Our pitch to our customers is not, hey, implement Axiom and save the planet,” he said. The pitch is to use existing data to operate existing assets more intelligently and improve profitability.
Robbins said the market for this type of refrigeration optimization has changed significantly since Axiom entered the sector about six years ago. Early customers required substantial education about the value of their operating data. He said major companies are now issuing competitive requests for proposals for these services.
Axiom is also pursuing what Robbins described as several large nationwide rollouts with major grocery and cold-storage companies in the United States.
The shift reflects a broader trend already visible in industries such as manufacturing, oil and gas, wind power and commercial agriculture: sensors, cloud computing and AI are increasingly being used to improve the performance of physical assets already in operation.
Robbins said buildings are now beginning to adopt the same operating model. Axiom is focused on the cold chain because refrigeration creates especially large energy, maintenance and emissions costs, but the underlying approach is familiar: collect data from existing equipment, analyze it centrally and use the results to operate assets more intelligently.
Be the first to comment