Utilities
GETTING AN ENERGY REBATE, THE WHOLE FOODS WAY The natural/organic food retailer worked closely with Sacramento Municipal Utility District last year to earn a substantial incentive for a remodeled store that includes a CO2 cascade system – By Michael Garry
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hole Foods Market has been among the most active food retailers in the U.S. when it comes to testing and evaluating natural refrigerant systems. Starting in 2009 with secondary and cascade refrigeration systems, the iconic natural and organic foods retailer, based in Austin, Texas, installed its first all-CO2 transcritical system in a store in Brooklyn, N.Y., in 2013. (See “Whole Foods’ Journey to Natural Refrigerants,” Accelerate America, Dec. 2014-Jan 2015.) It followed up with two more transcritical stores in Berkeley and San Jose, Calif., and then, this past May, with a store in Dublin, Calif., that uses an ammonia/ cascade system, just the second installed in a U.S. supermarket. On top of that, Whole Foods is testing 30 propane-based self-contained refrigerated units in about 20 locations. Whole Foods is trying to determine if natural refrigerants “make sense to us” from an energy, operational and maintenance perspective, said Aaron Daly, Whole Foods’ San Francisco-based global energy coordinator, responsible for energy efficiency improvements and incentive programs throughout the chain’s 12 operating regions. “We don’t have enough data to say yet. That’s why we are testing different designs to find the sweet spot.” To help defray the costs of these natural refrigerant systems, Whole Foods applies to utilities for energyefficiency rebate incentives. However, the retailer’s
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Accelerate America June 2015
strategy has not been to apply for incentives for the refrigeration systems themselves (though they are typically more efficient than conventional systems) but for the store as a whole. The Brooklyn store, for example, received support from NYSERDA (New York State Energy Research and Development Authority). The other transcritical stores’ requests are pending. “We apply for rebates for every store we build where we can get them,” said Daly. “We build very efficient stores, whether with natural refrigerants or not.”
Whole Foods’ first store with a CO2 transcritical system in Brooklyn, N.Y.