Photovoltaic Electricity for Cooling a Warehouse

Austria

Distributor saves 10,000 euros in annual energy costs thanks to PV system.

Mr Pichler from Biohandel in Austria was tired of handing over tens of thousands of euros to the energy supplier every year. Its main business area – trading in organic fruit and vegetables – requires an enormous energy capacity for cooling the goods. With the installation of a PV system on his own warehouse, Mr Pichler saves 10,000 euros a year in energy costs.

The system pays for itself extremely quickly: the system will have already covered its costs after five years. Everything after that is profit.

Rooftop photovoltaic system for companies

“We have the greatest need for electricity when it is warm outside - normally when the sun is shining. Especially in summer, the difference in temperature between outside and inside can be as high as 35°C. That costs a lot of money. When we expanded our warehouses a year ago, our installer gave us the idea of using the roof surfaces for a PV system,” says Gerhard Pichler about the origins of the PV system.

Planning by the regional installer

Planning was an extremely fast process. Pichler reports: “We were able to rely completely on our installer for this project. Our rooftop system has an output of 100 kWp over a total area of 610 m². A total of 370 polycrystalline modules were installed. When choosing the inverter manufacturer, it was very clear to us that they had to come from Europe. Our own company philosophy pursues the goal of selling regional products of the highest possible quality. There was therefore no question that we would use an Austrian inverter. Our installer recommended Fronius devices to us and this turned out to be the best decision.”

Self-consuming electricity as a commercial enterprise

The photovoltaic system was implemented in such a way that the highest possible proportion of the energy consumption of Biohandel can be covered by the PV output. Over 100,000 kWh of green electricity is produced annually by the PV system, of which the company can use an average of 80% itself. The largest loads in this case are the cooling systems.

According to Mr Pichler, „We can cover the largest part of our energy costs with the PV system. After only one year of use, we have already seen that we have generated a higher yield than originally anticipated. If we look at the investment costs, these will have already paid for themselves after five years.“

» The system costs will have paid for themselves in five years. «

Independence from the public grid

For companies with a high energy demand, it is currently still difficult to operate independently of the public grid. Biohandel, however, has already managed to demonstrate a degree of self-sufficiency of 40%. This means that it does not have to draw electricity from the grid for an average of almost 10 hours a day. Even more could be done with the introduction of storage systems.

Mr Pichler has a very clear opinion on this: „It would be great if we could store the electricity that we don’t use.“

Charging company vehicles with solar power

Although they account for only a small proportion of the total energy requirements, the company’s four electric cars also use the solar energy for charging. This enables the company to profit from the energy that it does not directly consume at source.

On sunny days, Biohandel’s PV system produces more energy than it can use itself. With this surplus, the employees can drive almost 3,200 electric kilometres. For Biohandel, it therefore makes sense to invest in further electric vehicles. This would allow the company to use even more of the PV power it produces itself and further increase the degree of self-consumption.

PV roof top system for cooling fruit and vegetables

Biohandel Pichler enjoys the following advantages by charging its e-cars with its own electricity:

They use as much of their own electricity as possible and save money
They feed less electricity into the grid
They charge their vehicles during the day when electricity production is high
They are not affected by rising fuel prices
They have created an incentive system for employees
They have improved their CO₂ balance

workers and vegetables organic trade Pichler

A PV system reduces the CO₂ footprint of a company

In addition to the purely economic benefits, a PV system also helps to reduce a company’s ecological footprint.

More and more customers expect companies to contribute to climate protection. This factor, which is difficult to measure, is gaining in importance and cannot be ignored when investing in renewable measures.

Info box:
Annual energy demand of the company	Approx. 200,000 kWh
Size of installation	100 kWp
Annual PV yield	Approx. 100,000 kWh
Self-consumption rate	80%
Degree of self-sufficiency	40%
Loads	Cooling system, packaging machines, conveyor belts, lighting
Components used	Fronius Symo inverter Fronius Smart Meter Keba charging unit for charging the e-vehicles
Roof space used for the PV modules	610 m²
Savings in energy costs	Approx. 10,000 euros p.a.
Payback time	Approx. 5 years
CO₂ saved/year	Approx. 53 tonnes