Energy management systems have often been the subject of eager talks of saving money and the environment but they also have been on the other side of the discussion as well. Will you actually save me money? Do energy management systems even work?

We recently installed a chameleon™ system in a family dining restaurant chain in Colorado and after only one day of having the system installed, we started seeing positive results. We installed new wireless thermostats and refrigeration controllers on their existing walk-in units, which all communicate to our chameleon webserver and up to the cloud and the energy savings speaks for itself in the graphs below. 

HVAC

Thermostats capable of running schedules and running according to their specific zone replaced the old thermostats on location. These thermostats also give us the capability to restrict local changes or designate a temporary setpoint and return to permanent setpoint. In the graph below you can see the kW consumption before the system was installed on Tuesday would reach peaks of 17 kW. After the system is installed on Tuesday you can see the energy consumption peaks at 8 kW,  that’s more than half!

Refrigeration

We also installed the chameleon adaptive controller on their walk-in refrigeration and freezer units. The chameleon adaptive controller has the ability to defrost on need rather than a time demand. Typically this controller will decrease the amount of defrosts a unit goes through by 70% on average. The controller learns the environment and defrosts based on its surroundings. This decreases the amount of energy consumed and increases the quality of the food by being subjected to a lower number of defrosts. In the graph below you can see the amount of energy consumed before the chameleon system was installed was peaking at almost 5 kW. Post chameleon system installation on Tuesday you can see the peak energy consumption is about half of what it was without the system.

What Else?

Results like these are seen all the time throughout the thousands of locations we have chameleon installed in. While providing you with energy savings and reducing your carbon footprint is our goal it isn’t the only thing we provide to restaurants and convenience stores. Food safety and operational efficiency are our other focus points for our clients. Talk with an energy expert today to see how we can help increase your operational efficiency and food safety all while saving you tons on your energy consumption.

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