Industrial Grid Flexibility by Refrigerant Energy Management System

Global shift toward electrification to reduce reliance on fossil fuels and overall increase in electric demand, have put a strain on the electric grid. Adding renewable generation, with inherent intermittency, makes balancing grid supply with load demand even more challenging. Refrigeration systems at food processors and distribution centers are a huge fraction of these sitesĺ electric demand. The proposed project will develop a real time, interactive system to shift electric load for refrigeration away from peak times, toward off-peak times, while still maintaining required cold or freezing temperatures at food processors and distribution centers. A comprehensive plant-wide Refrigerant Energy Management System (REMS) will be developed to deploy all energy management features available, with analysis of real-time grid conditions, to offer grid flexibility. This is expected to be part of a micro-grid system, with multiple options for on-site power generation. This project will advance the state-of-art of two advanced thermal energy storage technologies and their instrumentation and controls. These storage technologies- that are easier to implement, have high efficiency, and are compact, will be used to store chilling during off-peak times for use during peak electric load times. This suite of grid flexibility features- micro-grid, REMS, and thermal storage- can also be applied to many other industrial applications, and potentially to hydrogen refueling facilities. 30% of electric load may be shifted, in response to grid conditions and renewable energy generation rate, while maintaining required refrigeration performance. This will also increase site overall efficiency and decrease electricity consumption and associated carbon dioxide emissions.