2 Sisters Food Group
This food manufacturer used voltage regulation to unlock more than £61,000 of savings on their annual energy bills.
Food And Drink
Businesses throughout the food and drink supply chain are particularly exposed to all three aspects of the energy trilemma. Balancing each of these factors is a growing energy management challenge.
Reducing power disruptions in the Food and Drink Sector
Any interruption, including power disruption, risks taking vital equipment offline and can delay-sensitive processes, risking significant wastage and spoil. Each disruption has the potential to cause considerable damage to productivity and profitability.
The impact of rising energy costs on food and drink prices has already been significant, and retailers are increasingly reluctant to pass rising costs onto consumers. With energy markets remaining highly volatile, it is up to businesses within the sector to find solutions that can reduce their energy costs.
With a growing number of consumers now factoring in the sustainability of the produce they buy when making purchasing decisions, clear progress towards net zero is vital for food and drink producers to engage with key audiences, including major retailers.
How to Achieve Power Resilience for the Food and Drink Sector
An Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) system based on a battery energy storage system offers protection from the impact of grid disruption, while offering more flexible power management than traditional UPS solutions. In the event of a disruption event where grid supply is lost, a seamless transition to battery energy ensures that manufacturing processes continue as normal. This is particularly crucial for many food and drink producers with high volume production lines.
A site-wide resilience solution allows your entire site to be effectively protected from the risk of power disruption, rather than just key equipment. A well-implemented power resilience solution offers the ability to continue manufacturing processes regardless of events on the grid and your local network, while offering a comprehensive range of energy management solutions to cut costs and carbon.
Reducing Costs for the Food and Drink Sector
Better power resilience translates directly to lower costs for most businesses within the food and drink sector, reducing waste and spoilage and allowing for better productivity. Energy efficiency is also an important way of reducing energy costs, which can be achieved through a variety of technologies including voltage optimisation and low-loss transformers.
A battery energy storage system also presents a number of opportunities to reduce energy costs or to generate new revenue. Battery storage can be used to improve the return on investment from on-site generation, allowing electricity generated from technologies such as solar PV to be stored and used when required. Engaging in Demand Side Response schemes can also reward participants with payments from National Grid in return for helping the grid to balance supply and demand.
Achieving Net Zero for Food and Drink
As well as vital for many food and drink producers that are part of a sector that hold a Climate Change Agreement to secure a significant discount on their energy costs, net zero is a growing focus for major food retailers. Large UK supermarket chains are increasingly encouraging their supply chain partners to improve sustainability, with long-term goal of achieving net zero, in order to continue to work with them. Failing to lay out clear sustainability targets, and make demonstrable progress towards them, risks falling behind competitors that have done so.
Effective power management beyond power resilience
For the food and drink manufacturing sector, the rapid movement of many major retailers towards net zero means that pressure is mounting on supply chains to follow suit. Driven by changing sentiments amongst consumers, demonstrating a genuine commitment to reducing emissions is vital.
Resilience+ utilises a battery energy storage system not only to protect from power disruption, but to significantly reduce carbon emissions by making greater use of on-site generation or bolstering energy efficiency. With rising energy costs a significant concern for many manufacturers, energy efficiency is a crucial way to reduce overheads.
Read our free manufacturing white paper on
“Industry 4.0 plus Net Zero”
Related case studies
Quorn Foods
A combination of voltage regulation and low-loss transformers saved this leading food manufacturer over £71,000 on their annual energy bills.
Paragon Quality Foods Ltd
Margins in food manufacturing are tight, making a 12.3% reduction in electricity consumption vital for this UK producer.
Nutricia
Voltage optimisation delivered annual savings of more than £25,600 for this UK manufacturer.
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