Backshop Tiefkühl's previous energy management system did not meet the increasing requirements. The company therefore opted for the intelligent flexOn platform. It maximizes the PV system's self-consumption and saves energy — a sustainable and economical solution.
Backshop Tiefkühl GmbH is a subsidiary of the traditional company Harry-Brot GmbH. The wholesaler sells a wide range of frozen baked goods to large consumer, food service and food retail companies.
In order to store baked goods at an optimal temperature, Backshop Tiefkühl has a cold store with a cooling machine. In addition, the company uses a new ground-mounted PV system with a capacity of 1MWp to cover some of its energy needs. Before working with encentive, Kai Gebel, Managing Director of Logistics and IT, faced the following challenges:
Outdated energy
management system
The main challenge was to replace the previous energy management system, which had been in use since 2012. This was necessary because the product had not been further developed and the integration of the new ground-mounted PV system was therefore not possible.
PV system potential
not fully exploited
Due to the high capacity of the PV system, Backshop Tiefkühl was not always able to fully consume the cheap, self-generated electricity. At weekends in particular, electricity was often fed into the grid. As a result, potential remained unused and, when electricity prices were negative, the feed-in even cost the company additional money.
“By using the new energy management solution from encentive,
we hope to improve the integration of our own energy generation,
resulting in maximum use of our own energy.”
Our intelligent energy management platform flexOn uses Backshop Tiefkühl's cold store as energy storage. In times of high PV generation, flexOn automatically lowers the temperature and thus builds up a natural cold buffer. In times of low PV generation and expensive electricity prices, flexOn uses this buffer and feeds less cold into the cold store. In this way, the consumption of the cooling machine is optimized to match the generation of the PV system. As a result, Backshop Tiefkühl increases self-consumption and saves energy.Kühlhaus von Backshop Tiefkühl als Energiespeicher. In Zeiten mit viel PV-Erzeugung senkt flexOn die Temperatur automatisch und baut so einen natürlichen Kältepuffer auf. In Zeiten mit wenig PV-Erzeugung und teuren Strompreisen nutzt flexOn diesen Puffer und führt weniger Kälte in das Kühlhaus ein. Auf diese Weise wird der Verbrauch der Kälteanlage auf die Erzeugung der PV-Anlage optimiert. Backshop Tiefkühl erhöht dadurch den Eigenverbrauch und spart Energie.
Another positive effect of the optimization is the wear-optimized operation of the cooling machine. During normal operation, the system has a more cyclical behavior in which compressors run up and down more frequently. Optimization with flexOn reduces the cycle rate and the system runs evenly in the high or low load range over longer periods of time . This protects the cooling machine, ensures less wear and therefore a longer service life.
