The logistics industry is facing a record shortage of labor to fill warehouse and trucking roles. Are there ways to fund talent acquisition and still maintain profits?  Can other hidden savings in operations be unearthed to help find and retain this talent?  Read a recent Supply Chain Dive article explaining how TES technology is helping some logistics providers find new funding sources inside their operations.

Power Magazine‘s Darrell Proctor interviewed CEO James Bell after Viking Cold was awarded the Cleanie Platinum Project of the Year Award. James discusses the award-winning project with Massachusetts utility Eversource as well as other benefits beyond storing energy for time-of-use avoidance. He covers how long-duration Thermal Energy Storage also provides reduced mechanical run-time and wear and tear, sustainability improvements, and resiliency for food during extreme weather events or other power outages.

Energy is one of the most expensive ingredients in frozen foods. What changes in the electricity market are changing to favor the industry and why? What technologies can enable new energy strategies to take advantage of these changes to avoid costs and actually generate revenue streams? Find out these answers and more in FoodDive’s article that discusses why utilities are incentivizing energy efficiency and energy storage technologies for the frozen food industry.

The annual Energy Storage North America Innovation Awards recognize excellence and impact in energy storage project development. Our Eversource Demand Management Project that installed 1.3 MW of behind-the-meter storage was a finalist in the Behind-the-Meter category in 2019.

Viking Cold is honored to be the Platinum Winner of The Cleanie Awards Project of the Year for our storage and demand management project with Massachusetts utility Eversource. The awards program recognizes innovation excellence, business leadership, and superior programs within the cleantech and renewable energy sectors. The project involved the installation and commissioning of TES systems to store refrigeration energy and facilitate 1.3 MW of energy demand reduction across eight customer facilities, without requiring any additional real estate for the system components. The average size of the cold storage facilities in the program is approximately 50,000 square feet, with the largest being 157,000 square feet. The end-user customers of the program included Sysco (the world’s largest foodservice distributor), Americold (the world’s largest third-party cold storage company), Greater Boston Food Bank, and multiple frozen food processing companies.

ASHRAE Journal, the official publication of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers, has published an article outlining the resiliency benefits of thermal energy storage (TES) in commercial and industrial refrigeration applications. Temperature controlled food storage facilities have a number of risks that come from the increasing number of extreme weather-related power outages or from refrigeration system breakdowns. The ASHRAE article also describes additional benefits such as energy efficiency, improved temperature stability, and increased energy management options for facilities with TES.

On the MarketScale Energy podcast, President & CEO James Bell explores risk reduction in the cold chain. Dealing with frozen food has a lot of inherent risks: which include the enormous and continuous energy required to safely store frozen food, the variable and continually increasing energy prices, potential loss of power due to increasingly more common natural disasters, refrigeration system mechanical failures, and ultimately liability for lost or damaged product. Thermal Energy Storage (TES) can address each of these issues to add resiliency and efficiency, as well as reduce risks in the storage of frozen food applications.

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Food Processing Magazine has published an eHandbook outlining new technologies that food processors can use to improve food safety and food quality in their operations.  A number of new food processing technologies and their benefits are described including the food quality and energy-saving benefits of thermal energy storage.

Accelerate Magazine, a publication focused on advancing HVAC&R sustainability, has featured Viking Cold’s Thermal Energy Storage (TES) technology. The article covers the sustainability benefits of TES, a recent utility-backed demand management project, and a customer installation case study.

Cold Facts, the official publication of the Global Cold Chain Alliance (GCCA), published an article covering new technologies in cold storage construction that add efficiency to cold storage building projects. The article describes a presentation at the 38th Controlled Environment Building Association (CEBA) Conference delivered by Viking Cold Solutions, Cold Box Builders, and Evapco. Representatives from all three companies discuss new efficiency technologies and trends for the cold storage industry, particularly in ammonia refrigerated facilities.