Tesco reduces air conditioning costs & CO2 by 40%

Tesco is one of the UK’s leading retailers with over 1,700 stores and 250,000 employees.

M3G delivered:

The M3G was installed in the restaurant area of Tesco’s store in Gillingham. The pilot was to demonstrate what energy and CO2 savings could be achieved. Actual reduction in energy consumption of 40% was achieved.

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

Pilot Methodology:

A data logger was installed to record the run time of the air conditioning systems compressor. The logger used a current sensor to record the operation of the compressor.

A temperature logger was also installed in the space being served by the air conditioning system. This would prove the operation of the M3G did not compromise the temperature of the room environment.