Hannaford

There is nothing like a living example to show how energy efficiency saves money and reduces impact on the environment. Here, we profile a forward-thinking grocery company that has put energy efficiency into its strategic plan - and is reaping the rewards of lower energy bills and national recognition.

Hannaford Bros. Co., a 158-store chain in New England and New York, has been a leader in energy efficiency since the 1990s. In 2006, 16 of its stores earned ENERGY STAR® status from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the chain gained the EPA's prestigious ENERGY STAR Leaders designation for superior energy performance.

According to the EPA, each of Hannaford's 16 ENERGY STAR-labeled stores uses about 40% less energy than stores with average energy performance, avoiding more than 52 million pounds of carbon dioxide emissions per year - the equivalent of taking more than 5,100 cars off the road.

Performance of the 16 stores is typical of all stores in the chain. Every store features state-of-the-art energy-efficiency improvements, including:

• Building Automated Systems (BAS) for optimized control of lighting, refrigeration and HVAC systems;
• Heat reclaim from refrigeration for space heating;
• Design features that make refrigeration systems especially efficient in cold weather;
• Careful monitoring and electric sub-metering of building systems;
• T8 fluorescent lighting with electronic ballasts; and
• LED sign illumination.

In addition, through its participation in EPA's SmartWay Transport Partnership, since 2005 Hannaford Trucking Company has saved more than 115,000 gallons of diesel fuel and reduced carbon dioxide emissions by 8,700 tons.

The 120-year-old company is based in Scarborough, Maine. It is a subsidiary of Brussels-based Delhaize Group (NYSE:DEG), a global food-retailing leader with $17.3 billion in annual sales.

BetterBricks interviewed Harrison Horning, Hannaford's Energy Manager, about their innovative program.

BetterBricks: Does Hannaford Bros. Co. use a written energy efficiency program or policy? Who is in charge of it?

Harrison Horning: We have a three-year Strategic Energy Plan with strategies and initiatives for reducing energy use and costs. It addresses all of our company operations, except trucking. I'm in charge of it, and update it every September.

BB: What is your heating season? Cooling season? What is the average energy load per square foot of floor space for a sample of your stores?

HH: Our heating season is October-April, but some of our stores need heat year-round (a side-effect of the need for refrigeration). Our cooling season is mainly June-August, but we get some hot and/or humid days any time from April-November. Our average energy load per square foot is around 250 kBtu/sf-yr (which equates to 73 kWh/sf per year - slightly higher than the 68 kWh/sf per year average from a 2005 sample of 100 stores in the Northwest.)

BB: What are the design features that make your refrigeration systems efficient in cold weather?

HH: Two main things: 1) Use of a "floating head pressure" control strategy. This is fairly well understood in the industry, but our climate has given us a reason to get good at it. 2) Innovative approaches to reclaim waste heat from refrigeration that otherwise would be rejected. For example, we use "full-condensing" heat reclaim, where refrigerant condenses in a heating coil and gives up the latent heat of vaporization. We also have had success with ambient sub-cooling.

BB: Please describe the use of waste heat from refrigeration units for space heating. How many stores use this technique? What savings (energy and dollars) are the stores achieving?

HH: We started this program five years ago. Compressors produce hot gas, which must be condensed. By running this hot gas through a heating coil and fully condensing it, we capture 100% of the heat that would have been rejected to the atmosphere. This heat displaces purchased fuel. Almost all of our stores use some form of heat reclaim, although about 20% of them use full condensing.

BB: Please describe the efficient controls you've added to your refrigeration systems, and their impacts.

HH: The main things, as noted above, are floating head pressures and heat reclaim. We also use electronic expansion valves, which allow more sophisticated control at the refrigerated display cases. For example, we can maintain the superheat at relatively low levels, which improves efficiency.

BB: Please describe the Building Automation Systems (BAS) and their importance.

HH: The main function of a Building Automation System is to maintain temperatures. From an energy point of view, BAS also can be useful by turning things off or down when they're not needed. We turn off 50%-75% of our lighting at night. We turn down our refrigeration and HVAC whenever we can. Most BAS projects are directed at upgrading obsolete equipment, to make sure we can optimize these types of energy management functions.

BB: We'd like to ask you a few questions about monitoring. How do you monitor your systems' performance? What do you monitor, and how often? Who reviews the information? Can you share the results of the monitoring? How often do you report the results?

HH: We monitor all stores' monthly energy bills. We also have about 30 stores with hourly power monitoring, including some sub-metering of selected loads, and these systems can "flag" us with an automatic email if something is using too much power. In addition, we have the ability to call up the BAS at every one of our stores from the corporate office. Each store has hundreds of monitoring and control points (new stores typically have 500-800 points, depending on the size of the store) that we can monitor and control from here. We have an Energy Monitoring Coordinator who reviews monthly data and responds to alarm "flags" to determine which stores need attention. She also does a lot of work with lighting schedules to make sure we stay aggressive.

BB: Do you have any kind of energy awareness training for employees?

HH: Our in-store associates are trained for their particular jobs, which includes training on our standard operating procedures. Over the years, we have incorporated the important energy management information into our standard operating procedures, as well as into specific job-training packages, so all employees get some relevant training.

BB: How do you address energy usage in new construction? Do specifications call out requirements to designers and vendors? Do the vendors propose alternatives for your review? We are interested in how you look at the balance between first cost and overall lifecycle cost.

HH: Energy efficiency is part of our thinking for new stores. We have an in-house engineering team that oversees all projects, and produces drawings and specifications for some projects. This gives us more than the typical level of control. Our construction documents are pretty specific about acceptable building and equipment components; we don't leave much up to the vendors. This is especially true for refrigeration. Every few years, we analyze our design standards to improve energy efficiency in various systems and/or components. In general, we use a life-cycle cost approach for evaluating the cost-benefit of various options, balanced with the "gut feel" of some very seasoned people and the ever-present desire of supermarket executives to "build it for less money".

For more information, please contact:

Hannaford Bros. Co.
Harrison Horning
Energy Manager
Hannaford Bros. Co.
Tel: (207) 885-2787
Fax: (207) 885-3197
www.hannaford.com