Peter Bade GmbH previously had no clear view of the cooling machines's performance, leaving optimization potential untapped. The flexOn energy management system resolved this, boosting PV self-consumption and leading to significant savings.
Peter Bade GmbH has been professionally handling food transportation for industrial and commercial clients since 1929. Thanks to the 6500 m² cold storage and logistics hall in Neumünster, the company can also clean loading equipment, lend empties and store fresh products at different temperature levels in addition to the transportation business.
Peter Bade GmbH has a cooling machine and a heat pump to keep the logistics hall at the right temperature and store fresh products. In addition, the company has been using its own PV systems for several years to cover part of its electricity requirements. Before our collaboration, Peter Bade‘s Managing Director Alexander Bullien faced several challenges:
Lack of overview of consumers
Firstly, the Managing Director lacked an overview of all electrical consumers and systems. Bullien did not know at what times the various loads were generated and which temperature levels and processes required how much energy.
Ineffective use of fluctuating electricity prices & high PV production
Due to the lack of precise information on load profiles, dynamic load management was only possible to a limited extent. Despite being connected to the spot market, the company was barely able to benefit from fluctuating electricity prices. In addition, the electricity from the company's own PV system, which is particularly abundant at midday, could not be used effectively. Therefore, a lot of potential remained untapped.
“By using the flexOn energy management platform, we wanted to finally get an overview of the energy flows in the company, export measured values simply and clearly and, above all, save on electricity costs and grid charges.”
When implementing the flexOn energy management platform, all historical data, relevant systems and installations were brought together. As a result, Managing Director Alexander Bullien is now able to monitor all plant data and energy flows in 15-minute real time intervals. In addition to internal data, flexOn also allows the company to keep an eye on external data such as stock exchange prices and weather data.
Once all the systems had been brought together, our team carried out initial step tests in the control system to find out how high the flexibility potential was and combined this with various optimization targets. Since then, flexOn analyzes all the data and uses artificial intelligence to create forecasts for electricity consumption and generation. The forecasts are used to create intelligent, optimized schedules for the electricity consumption of the cooling machine. All relevant limit parameters, such as temperature specifications, are taken into account. Our energy management platform automatically controls the consumers according to the schedules – without influencing the normal business processes. This way, dynamic load shifting, and the associated added value run themselves.
The AI-based schedules are designed to consume electricity when it is cheap on the spot market or when a lot of energy is available from the company's own PV systems. As a result, Peter Bade has made considerable savings in costs and CO₂ emissions. At the same time, the efficiency and ROI of the PV system has increased by using the intelligent energy management.
Overall, the flexOn energy management platform has achieved savings in three areas through AI-based data analysis and automated control. The savings were calculated as follows:
In the first step, the electricity prices from the first quarter of 2024 and the consumption of the systems without flexOn’s control were taken from the historical data. They were used to calculate the energy costs and consumption that would have been incurred in the first quarter of 2024 without the use of the intelligent energy management. These were compared with the actual energy consumption and costs incurred with the use of flexOn. The consumption data was also adjusted for weather conditions.
flexOn optimizes the market price by analyzing day-ahead electricity prices and automatically shifting electricity consumption to periods when electricity is green and cheap. The aim is to minimize electricity costs with the help of load shifting. Thanks to the market price optimization of the cooling machine, which accounts for around 60 to 70 % of the site, Peter Bade GmbH paid 15.6 % lower working prices in the first quarter of 2024.
The optimized operation and automated control of the flexOn energy management platform has increased the energy efficiency of the cooling machine and reduced electricity consumption by 11.3 % in the first quarter of 2024. flexOn also controls the heat pump in a way that it uses more of the cooling machine's waste heat to run even more efficiently. As further optimization is still pending in this area, it was not included in the calculation for the time being.
As part of atypical grid usage, flexOn uses peak shaving to reduce grid utilization during peak load windows. During this time, more renewable energy from Peter Bade GmbH's PV system was used instead of electricity from the grid operator. In addition, flexOn used the cooling machine as energy storage: In order to avoid heavy consumption during the high-load time windows, the energy management system reduced the temperature more during periods of low grid utilization within the limit parameters. In the high-load time windows, flexOn reduced the electricity consumption of the cooling machine, which brought the temperature back to the regular level. By peak shaving in the peak load time windows, Peter Bade has saved 30 % on grid charges compared to the previous year. With further technical improvements that are already in action, we expect to save 44 % by 2025.
Calculated over the year, the Peter Bade GmbH saves 135 MWh of electricity by using flexOn. According to the Geman Federal Environment Agency, every megawatt hour of electricity consumed emits an average of 0.4 kg of CO₂ . In total, this results in a saving of 54 tons of CO₂ emissions, which Peter Bade GmbH has saved through intelligent energy management.
lower energy prices
through market price optimization
lower power consumption
of the colling machine
lower grid charges
due to atypical grid usage
saved per year
CO2 saved per year
lower electricity prices
through market price optimization
lower power consumption
of the cooling machine
lower grid charges
due to atypical grid usage
saved per year
CO2 saved per year
