McDonald’s reduces air conditioning costs & CO2 by between 38% and 57%

McDonald’s is one the world’s most known brands in the world. McDonald’s operate over 1,000 restaurants in the UK. Serving over 2.5 million customers a day.

M3G delivered:

McDonald’s installed M3G, to reduce energy consumption and CO2 emissions from their air conditioning systems. Actual reduction in energy consumption ranged from 38% to 57%.

What is M3G?

M3G is an electronic, self learning, memory-based control system and can be integrated with most existing commercial air conditioning systems. M3G ensures that the air conditioning system is always working at maximum efficiency by effectively eliminating inefficiencies caused by the air conditioning system being ‘oversized’. Oversized systems are defined as having excess operational capacity over what is required to cool the space. BSRIA claim that 88% of ventilation systems are oversized resulting in 62% of installed cooling capacity being superfluous and resulting in wasted energy.

M3G measures the temperature of the cooling air entering the room from the air conditioning evaporator and monitors the rate of change. The compressor is stopped when the air temperature from the unit’s evaporator has fallen and plateaus. Cooling air continues to be transferred into the room until all liquid refrigerant has evaporated through the system. Once the off coil temperature has risen to 2oC below the room thermostat set point, M3G will allow the compressor to restart and the process is repeated.

The M3G’s intelligent software will anticipate non essential starts and stops and allows a minimum 4 minute rest period that ensures the air conditioning unit is not damaged by rapid cycling. The compressor running hours can be reduced by as much as 20% and 50%, resulting in a significant reduction in energy consumption and carbon emissions.

Building Management Systems (BMS)

The M3G integrates seamlessly with Building Management Systems. The majority of M3G installations are in buildings which have Building Management Systems already in place.

Pilot Methodology:

The pilot was conducted in two McDonald’s restaurants in the UK. 5 M3G’s were installed into the Bolton restaurant on package systems. 1 M3G was fitted to an air handling unit with gas heating and DX cooling at the Guiseley restaurant.

The overall pilot was conducted over 10 days. A comparison was then made between the compressor run time and operational hours, with and without the M3G’s. The air conditioning units were monitored via run meters. A time clock switched operational modes of the M3G between operating and bypass every 24 hours. This also switched the run meters.

The savings on the run time of the compressors with the M3G’s ranged between 38% and 57%. Staff confirmed the kitchen and restaurant temperatures during the pilot were not affected.