Page 33 - Climate Control News Magazine Feb 2021

Natural Refrigerants
GREEN POWER BY 2025
Woolworths Group will power its entire operations with renewable electricity by 2025, on the road to net positive carbon emissions by at least 2050.
The ambitious power pledge is part of the retail group’s newly announced Sustainability Plan, which charts its path to 2025.
As Australia’s largest retailer, the Group’s transition to renewable energy represents a significant investment in the sector over the next five years.
Woolworths will partner on new-build renewable energy projects to amplify its contribution to growing the industry and is calling on green energy operators to help it make the large-scale transition across all its stores and support operations.
Woolworths Group CEO Brad Banducci said
Woolworths Group CEO Brad Banducci.
moving to 100 per cent renewable electricity represents a significant acceleration in the company’s plans to reduce carbon emissions.
“We use around one per cent of Australia’s national electricity, so we have a unique opportunity to use our scale for good and make a real impact,” he said.
was critical for introducing the new technolo- gy into stores.
“Emerson Connect+ enterprise application connects every Woolworths supermarket across the country, so regardless of where our support teams are located, we can interrogate and monitor the situation in individual stores,” Ferlin said.
“If we’re piloting in a new technology, there’s no longer a need to necessarily fly across the country to investigate an issue or check that our design specification is on track, or if the specifi- cation requires adjustment.
“Connect+ delivers exceptional value to us and is certainly one of the aces up Emerson’s sleeve.” The development of Emerson’s refrigeration
pack controller for transcritical applications was an important innovation for Woolworth’s suc- cess in this space.
“Emerson was already supplying European customers with distributed control solutions, so it was easy to work with its team to develop a control solution for our eSpecification initiative,” Ferlin said.
As distributed control solutions for transcriti- cal refrigeration was a relatively new concept in Australia – especially for Woolworths’ refriger- ated showcase manufacturers, installers and contractors – Woolworths needed to get part- ners onboard in a way that ensured good econo- mies of scale and a consistent standard of quality across all supermarket installations.
“It's been three years since our first store went transcritical, and three years of weekly workshops with Emerson where we continue to work through the opportunities for improv- ing the controller for transcritical applica- tions,” he said.
Despite making a public commitment to have 10 transcritical CO2 refrigeration stores by 2020 as part of its sustainability strategy, Woolworths doubled its goal with 20 transcritical stores by the end of 2020.
By driving energy efficiency and natural re- frigerants from 2007 to 2015, Woolworths man-
aged to abate its BAU trajectory based on 2007, by 40 per cent by 2015.
“We are now aiming to reach a new target of reducing our 2015 emissions level by 63 per cent by 2030,” Ferlin said.
“Woolworths plans to achieve this through a continued commitment to transcritical CO2 re- frigeration and exploring further opportunities to cut emissions.”
Ferlin recognises that the new target is very ambitious, as refrigeration systems typically ac- count for about half a store’s energy consumption.
“WE WANT TO PLAY OUR PART IN BUILDING WORLD CLASS SKILLS AND CAPABILITIES LOCALLY.”
Woolworths had to create a local CO2 industry ecosystem to address the skills gap.
That is 50 per cent of indirect emissions and about 25 per cent of a store’s direct emissions.
“Those refrigeration assets will remain the biggest opportunity for reducing emissions over the next decade,” he said.
“Transcritical CO2 will play a big part in our strategy. It is almost the holy grail of cli- mate control.
“There are challenges, but there are also opportunities and we want to unlock its full potential across refrigeration, air condition- ing and heating in all its guises – like inte- grating the refrigeration system with air con- ditioning and heating systems to reduce overall emissions.
“We’re already investigating how a store’s re- frigeration waste heat can be best used to heat the store and we’re seeing some solid energy sav- ing potential.”
Through its shift to transcritical and distrib- uted control systems, Woolworths has also in- vested in building a cohesive technology partner ecosystem to support and ‘futureproof’ its sys- tems, and invariably those of other food and gro- cery retailers.
“As a principal stakeholder in the commercial refrigeration industry we want to play our part in building world-class skills and capabilities lo- cally,” Ferlin said.
“We remain passionate about learning and growing with local partners like Emerson to de- liver the best possible solutions for our needs and improving technology for the broader industry in Australia.
“Emerson has been a true technology partner in so many ways, and what we have already achieved together is a solid showcase for what is possible with Emerson products and solutions.”
CLIMATE CONTROL NEWS FEBRUARY 2021
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