Axiom Exergy Announces Grid Services - a New Revenue Stream for Portfolios of Grocery Stores and Cold Storage Facilities
The program will launch as part of Axiom's multi-site deployment with Whole Foods Market. Grid Services is enabled through a technology partnership with Leap, a marketplace provider for flexible capacity
RICHMOND, California, March 19, 2019 /PRNewswire/ -- Continuing its efforts to generate additional benefits for grocery stores and cold storage facilities, Axiom Exergy is working with Leap to unlock grid services revenue for its customers, including three Whole Foods Market facilities in Northern California.
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Axiom now uses its Refrigeration Battery platform to provide two major services - Energy Bill Management and Grid Services - to its customers simultaneously. The Refrigeration Battery platform enables real-time control of a grocery store's power consumption using an advanced cloud platform, predictive analytics, and a thermal energy storage retrofit.
The Refrigeration Battery platform actively manages the grocery store's power consumption by intelligently modulating its refrigeration systems. It intelligently charges by freezing tanks of salt water when power demand and utility rates are low - then it autonomously discharges the cooling to offset refrigeration consumption when electricity demand and prices are high, lowering the customer's utility bills.
During peak hours when demand for energy is high and the grid is stressed, grid operators in California and many other markets also provide direct financial incentives to reduce power consumption in order to balance the grid. Axiom's new Grid Services application enables its customers to tap into these direct financial incentives for the first time. Grid services participation requires no additional work from the customer, and revenue reports are accessible through the customer web portal.
"We are pleased to expand our use of innovative platforms like Axiom Exergy's to unlock new value streams and increase sustainability in our stores," said Tristam Coffin, Director of Sustainability & Facilities at Whole Foods Market. "After a previous successful installation, we are happy to continue partnering with Axiom to implement more cutting-edge power management strategies."
To make grid service participation possible, Axiom is working with energy technology company Leap, which serves as an aggregator of flexible loads to the California Demand Response Auction Mechanism (DRAM) market. Alongside Axiom, Leap works with other flexible loads like EV chargers, battery storage systems, and smart thermostats to form a virtual power plant. Utilities pay Leap's virtual power plant to reduce load on demand, and Leap then compensates its load providers for their participation. As a load provider, Axiom receives signals from Leap's Distributed Energy eXchange (DEX) API, bids flexible capacity into the market on an hourly basis based on available capacity, and delivers load reductions by modulating its customers' thermal systems accordingly.
"We are always looking for new, innovative partners who can provide flexible loads on our platform," said Thomas Folker, CEO of Leap. "Given that commercial and industrial customers spend 28% of their electricity on thermal services, we're thrilled to partner with Axiom who can unlock these loads and make them dispatchable for the first time."
The addition of grid services follows Axiom Exergy's Series A funding, which included new investments from Shell Ventures and Evergy Ventures (formerly GXP Investments). The news also follows multiple successful deployments of the Refrigeration Battery platform for major grocery retailers, each of which can autonomously reduce a store's peak load by up to 160 kW for 8 hours without any changes to staff behavior or daily operations.
"With so many grocery stores and cold storage facilities operating on razor-thin margins, we are thrilled to offer a service that creates a low-risk and logical revenue stream," said Amrit Robbins, CEO and co-founder of Axiom Exergy. "Sixty to seventy percent of a typical grocery store's electricity bill is driven by power, or WHEN energy is consumed. With this robust platform, we can leverage our customers' existing thermal systems to reduce their utility bills, unlock new grid services revenue streams, and protect against expensive food spoilage during power outages throughout their portfolio of buildings."
About Axiom Exergy
Axiom Exergy provides active power management services to portfolios of commercial and industrial buildings with large thermal loads. Its cloud-based platform uses predictive analytics and optional thermal energy storage capacity to intelligently "shape" a customer's load profile by modulating refrigeration, cooling, and/or heating systems. With unique expertise in thermal systems, power grid dynamics, building power management, machine learning, and computational thermal modeling, Axiom provides the first turnkey power management platform that generates meaningful value for customers with large thermal loads. Axiom Exergy also offers fully-financed power management "as-a-service" so that its customers can receive the benefits with no up-front cost. www.axiomexergy.com
About Leap
Leap provides a marketplace for grid services that allows every connected device to help balance the grid, regardless of capacity, availability or location, with one simple integration.
Leap is based in San Francisco and backed by well known energy investors. They were recently awarded a significant contract with the two largest utilities in California, enabling them to kickstart their marketplace. The company was founded by Thomas Folker and Remco van den Elzen, experienced entrepreneurs with track records in energy and tech.
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Tyler Allen
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