Background
The Country Mile, a convenience store based in Greenville New Hampshire, was experiencing refrigeration issues such as coils freezing up and appliances running longer than necessary. The local New Hampshire business, which has been family owned and operated since 1980, has three controllable areas of cooling, twenty-four doors equipped with anti-sweat heaters, five novelty coolers and two medium temperature walk-in coolers containing 4,550 cubic feet of refrigerated space. To decrease their monthly bills and energy usage, The Country Mile partnered with Eversource and National Resource Management to upgrade their refrigeration systems.
“When NRM first installed their system, it made us aware we had a compressor on the roof running 24/7. Of course, no one noticed, because you can’t hear it up there. Additionally, prior to NRM’s defrost tools, we dealt with iced up evaporator coils all the time. The improvements from Eversource and NRM have definitely made our lives easier.”
– Josh Correia, The Country Mile
The Eversource Solution
After Eversource conducted a no-cost energy audit of the facility via NHSaves, National Resource Management (NRM) and Eversource identified opportunities to optimize the business’ refrigeration system. These improvements included
three upgraded walk-in controls, three door heater control circuits, five non-perishable novelty controls and eight small
evaporator electronically commutated (EC) motors. When speaking with NRM and Eversource, Country Mile owner Josh Correia mentioned that two features in particular have greatly improved the system’s operation:
- The ability to start a defrost whenever necessary (either on-site or remotely)
- A timed system shutdown that safely turns the refrigeration o for 20 minutes
Josh also trained his delivery drivers to push the red shut-down button on their trucks when they arrive, thus stopping the system’s production of humidity, which used to “ice-up” his evaporator.
The upgrades at The Country Mile were made possible with a 50% incentive from Eversource. By working with Eversource to conserve and reduce energy use, and with NRM’s solution to optimize its equipment for energy e ciency, The Country Mile saves over $6,000 every year in operating costs and an annual energy savings of 42,118 kWh.