The energy crisis has propelled energy efficiency to the top of the agenda for households and businesses across the nation. Energy intensive in their very nature, the impacts are acute for temperature-controlled storage operations.
Cold chain businesses are managing the here and now where it is possible to do so: knowing buying and contract options inside out; and making sure contracts with customers are sharing the increases in the best and most realistic way possible.
But there is no expectation of a quick return to ‘normal’ energy prices, which is why many cold chain businesses are also accelerating their programmes to improve the energy efficiency of their warehouses and operations.
The Cold Chain Federation is providing support and advice to our members on the immediate and medium-term areas of focus, but we are also working for our members by planning for the longer-term. Government has laid in law its target of a Net Zero Economy by 2050 and the UK will need to undergo a major energy transformation. There could be valuable opportunities for cold stores who place themselves at the forefront of this transition.
In terms of generating clean energy, the size, design and typical location of a cold storage warehouse makes them well suited for renewable energy generation. Some cold stores are already incorporating solar panels on roofs and wind turbines elsewhere on site and the opportunities are set to grow. Anaerobic digesters and biomass boilers can also be incorporated on the site of tomorrow’s cold stores for powering Combined Heat and Power (CHP) systems, which provides a highly efficient energy source from coupling on-site generation with additional energy from heat wasted in power stations.
Some cold chain operations could find significant opportunity through ‘centralised cooling’, where a single system provides refrigeration for multiple facilities and businesses within a local system or district. Other facilities may be better suited to ‘demand side response’, where cold stores can store energy by overcooling by a couple of degrees which allows them to be switched off for a longer period of time.
Temperature-controlled warehouses are also well placed to harness the opportunities of energy storage. Tomorrow’s cold stores could act as virtual batteries or support physical batteries, charging from their own produced energy or from off peak grid energy and discharged to the grid as required.
Look out for further details about these potential opportunities and more in our new Net Zero Project report, The Cold Store of 2050, which will be available at www.coldchainfederation.org.uk from May 2022.
Shane Brennan
Chief Executive, Cold Chain Federation
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