LIAT Partnership Set to Cool Down Cost of Retail Refrigeration
A 24-month project which hopes to tackle the high cost of retail refrigeration has been led by a consortium comprising the University of Lincoln UK, Tesco Stores Ltd, the Grimsby Institute and Intelligent Management Systems Ltd. The full-scale project is called the Development of Dynamic Energy Control Mechanisms for Food Retailing Refrigeration Systems.
The cost of retail refrigeration totals more than 14% of the UK’s electricity usage and also represents roughly a third of a typical food and drink retailer’s energy cost. Supermarkets across the nation currently utilise thousands of refrigeration units, not only to keep our food and drink chilled, but also to prolong the shelf life of produce and prevent the growth of harmful bacteria.
The research demonstrates the largest Demand Side Response (DSR) project to food retailing networks using the Internet of Things (IoT) technology. In the video below, Director of the Lincoln Institute for Agri-Food Technology (LIAT), Professor Simon Pearson, discusses how the Knowledge Transfer Network (KTN) helped identify funding through an Innovate UK competition.