Fingerprint for preventive maintenance and energy optimization in the catering industry
The aim of the project is to develop an enhanced monitoring of walk-in chilled storages in the catering industry, which utilizes the potentials within energy savings, control of behavior, proactive maintenance, food quality, and reduction of food-waste as well as improved work environment. The enhanced monitoring recognizes events/signatures/profiles in the collected data from the refrigeration system (i.e. fingerprints), and the detected fingerprint causes an adjustment, human interaction or changed behavior.
Based on electrical, temperature, and usage data from refrigeration systems in the catering industry, the purpose of the project is to detect hidden potentials consisting of possible energy savings, need for proactive maintenance, and changed behavior. Data will be analyzed to find generic fingerprints, which can be implemented in an enhanced monitoring system of refrigeration systems – firstly in walk-in chilled/freeze storages in the catering industry. A fingerprint is defined as an event, a signature or a changed profile in data, which is tracked by an enhanced monitoring system. The enhanced monitoring system then adjusts the set-points of the refrigeration system or notifies the user about the demand for an action together with possible solutions. The results will activate the utilization of inaccessible energy savings in an industry where energy efficiency is not highly prioritized. Besides an economic advantage, this activation will also support increased food quality, reduction of food waste, and an improved work environment. The project is divided into two stages, where this application covers stage one. In stage one, the development of the enhanced monitoring system of walk-in chilled/freeze storages is initiated. In stage two, the aim is to develop an "automatic multi monitoring aggregate", which is installed on the main electrical board and then automatically detects, which high energy consuming devices are connected to the conductors of the main board. This aggregate enables the monitoring of ventilation systems, heaters, plugin units, and ether major energy consuming components. The experience gained in this project can also be applied to ether industries and applications.
The aim of the project is to develop an enhanced monitoring of walk-in chilled storages in the catering industry, which utilizes the potentials within energy savings, control of behavior, predictive maintenance, food quality, and reduction of food-waste as well as improved work environment. The enhanced moni-toring recognizes events/signatures/profiles in the collected data from the refrigeration system (i.e. fin-gerprints), and the detected fingerprint causes an adjustment, human interaction or changed behavior.
In this project, a large amount of data from walk-in chilled storages have been analyzed, and inefficient as well as inappropriate operation of the refrigeration systems have been uncovered. During the project period, a first and simple version of the software has been developed, which is expected to be loaded into the enhanced monitoring. This simple version can detect and pinpoint door openings in tempera-ture data (which are very important for the refrigeration room efficiency and the energy consumption). Furthermore, it can assess the load of the refrigeration system.
This functionality makes it possible to calculate key indicators for the operation of the refrigeration sys-tem as well as the energy efficiency. These key indicators can be sent to the user / owner, who can thereby ensure that the equipment is operated energy efficiently, and that this behavior is maintained.
In the project, it has been proven that this concept works and that this simple software can utilize energy savings corresponding to 22 % of the total energy consumption used by refrigeration and freezing sys-tems in the Danish catering industry. This is provided by the fact that it will be fully implemented through-out the industry. In total, this is a saving of just under 30 GWh per year.
Key figures
Category
Participants
| Partner | Subsidy | Auto financing |
|---|---|---|
| R&M El | ||
| Sensohive Technologies ApS | ||
| Københavns Kommune | ||
| AK Centralen A/S |
