Flexible Power Systems (FPS) and Waitrose are delighted to have been selected as finalists in the RAC Cooling Awards for the Environmental Collaboration of the Year: Commercial or Domestic Project.

FPS provides bespoke software and hardware solutions for planning and managing EV fleets across all classes of commercial vehicle. As part of its wider collaboration with the John Lewis Partnership, it has been working with Waitrose to deliver a first-of-a-kind monitoring and load control solution that allows the electricity consumption of Transport Refrigeration Units (TRUs) to be monitored and controlled by FPS’ proprietary cloud-based Operate software.

The Challenge

There are many advantages to using electricity to power TRUs in distribution centres via “hook-ups”. TRUs account for 10-15% of HGV fuel use and up to two-thirds of this usage can take place in depots where energy intensive activities like pull-downs and waiting take place. Switching to electricity reduces running costs, particulate and noise pollution. It also can produce 6-10% reductions in Scope 1 carbon emissions without requiring significant vehicle investments.

However, TRU hook-up programmes can be delayed or cancelled for several reasons. In some locations, a lack of power can make it impossible to plug in TRUs without investment in costly connection upgrades that can take years. At others, a lack of information about return on investment from the plugs can prevent projects going ahead.

The Project

Waitrose has an extensive and successful programme of TRU hook-up deployments as part of its efforts to reduce fuel costs and emissions from operations of its TRU fleet. The company’s Aylesford distribution centre operates more than 200 temperature-controlled vehicles from four separate warehouses. Aylesford was selected for investment by the Transport team because of the potential to deliver 100 T per month of carbon savings.

Detailed pre-build electric load modelling revealed that the current grid connection capacity at Aylesford was insufficient to support the project. It was established that an upgrade would have been costly and lengthy.

Dynamic and targeted load control of TRU hook-up loads was identified as a potential solution. FPS and Waitrose therefore collaborated to develop a new hardware and software solution that enabled automated load monitoring control to take place at the distribution centre, avoiding the need for a costly connection upgrade.

The Solution

FPS delivered an intelligent 32 amp "smart plug” capable of metering, load control, and two-way communications. The “smart plug” was then integrated into FPS’ e-fleet management platform FPS Operate which is integrated into a range of Waitrose operated metering and logistics software systems, thus facilitating automated load control and monitoring.

Waitrose worked collaboratively with FPS to integrate operational and energy systems at the site and to develop a specification for the “smart plug” that would be suitable for distribution centre operations.

The result of the collaboration is that an expensive grid connection has been avoided along with a multi-year project delay.