ST. LOUIS — Copeland has announced a partnership with Enersponse, a provider of distributed energy resource (DER) management services for commercial and industrial customers.

This collaboration offers a chance for food retailers to improve energy conservation efforts through involvement in demand-response initiatives that assist in stabilizing the power grid during times of high electricity consumption, Copeland said in a press release.

Enersponse's intelligent automation system sends a secure signal to reduce electricity usage when the power grid is at risk of outages or when energy prices spike. In addition to stabilizing the grid, these programs provide a passive revenue stream through incentives and automated demand-response (ADR) rebates, decrease energy consumption and utility bills, and reduce carbon emissions, which supports corporate sustainability and environmental, social and governance (ESG) objectives. 

To enable ADR, food retailers must have a comprehensive energy management system (EMS) on their premises. Copeland control solutions deliver seamless energy management and ADR deployment. The Copeland E3 supervisory control is used to enable web-accessible control over critical building and refrigeration systems, including compressor groups, condensers and walk-in units, HVAC, and lighting systems. The Copeland ProAct Connect+ enterprise management software is used to provide near real-time access to manage multi-site food retail operations. This provides access to data to perform root-cause analysis and corrective actions to help save time and costs. Finally, the Copeland CC200 case controller is also a part of this, and communicates with the E3 supervisory control and Copeland’s Cold Chain Connect mobile app.

Copeland and Enersponse solutions together allow grocers to create customized parameters for responding to energy-demand events according to the grocers’ specific requirements, ensuring that critical operations, food safety, and customer and employee comfort remain unaffected. 

“Customers have the power to allow small adjustments to heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration (HVACR) systems and refrigeration temperatures or to dim lights during high-demand periods. Enersponse simplifies the entire process, from program enrollment to the end of a power-reduction event, and provides automation through a secure connection to the current Copeland building controls to make participation effortless,” said James McPhail, CEO of Enersponse. “Our goal is to make the process so seamless that customers and employees remain unaware that electricity usage has been reduced. Integration partners like Copeland allow this to happen through a secure connection with their cost-effective control systems.”

Copeland and Enersponse have been collaborating with major grocery store chains in California for over a year, overseeing their demand-response participation. These retailers have obtained rebates to cover the cost of upgrading Copeland hardware and software, such as supervisory and building management controllers, a/c and refrigeration compressors, and enterprise monitoring and building controls. The grocers have enrolled in an auto-demand response program and are receiving ADR rebates. In 2022, one of the grocers managed to avoid approximately 220,000 lbs. of carbon emissions, reducing carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions and securing rebates totaling over $500,000.

“This is a simple way to enhance building automation in the commercial refrigeration space while meeting ESG goals,” said Corey Wheat, energy and utility solutions business development manager at Copeland. “Through this program, we can conduct a building and site survey to determine where savings can be enhanced.”