Global Food & Drinks Business Leads Positive Green Change
Customer Background
A VIOTAS customer since 2014, our longstanding client is a multi-billion dollar world-leading food and beverage company. The leadership team has a deep-rooted belief that continuous success is inextricably linked to the sustainability of our world. Thanks to their mission to create positive change through a more sustainable food system, the business consistently looks to integrate green values into core daily business operations.
While achieving continued success with sustainable production and packaging programs, our client has gone one step further in reducing their carbon footprint by using 100% renewable electricity in multiple European countries and is currently transitioning to using 100% renewable energy in all of its direct operations in the USA.
The Challenge
In keeping with the company’s global ambition to make a positive difference, both within and beyond their value chain, our client’s Irish manufacturing operations sought to go beyond procuring renewable energy to supporting the increased use of renewable energy across the wider power system. With this goal in mind and due to having limited internal expertise in this area, a trusted partner was required to bring an innovative approach to help attain their goals and adapt to their growth ambitions.
The Solution
VIOTAS collaborated with the on-site Engineering team to quickly understand their immediate and future electricity needs in the context of the business’ sustainability goals. Identifying two facilities’ abilities to deliver approximately 2 MW of flexible demand response was key to increasing the usage of renewable energy and decreasing the use of fossil fuels on the Irish power system.
By conducting an audit of both plants, the VIOTAS team built a holistic view of how the client could support and benefit from the Irish energy ecosystem. VIOTAS core technologies were used to gather insights and understand where improvements could be made. While analysing the data, it became clear that efficiencies were possible on the run time of equipment to reduce max demand periods. It was through this process that VIOTAS were able to see an opportunity to effectively exceed the business’ initial goals.
Through our collaboration with the client, we introduced them to trusted partners to help identify new equipment that would complement the implementation of our Demand Side Flexibility technology and drive further sustainability of their energy usage.
The Result
Demand Side Flexibility Key to Success
Implementing VIOTAS Demand Side Flexibility technology on their two sites, allowed our client to capture a new revenue stream and use their operational flexibility to support the balancing of renewable energy on the power grid. This helps increase the usage of renewable energy throughout Ireland, reducing the carbon intensity of power for all electricity consumers.
Our client’s two facilities are now on a roadmap to successfully enable greater decarbonization, by allowing more renewable energy on the power system and implementing energy best practices. Their Irish manufacturing operations are playing a significant role in creating a sustainable power system in Ireland and supporting the wider business’ goals of improved sustainability across the globe.
“For over a decade, our organisation has been procuring green through our value chain, however, VIOTAS has helped us enable green through the use of Demand Response technologies. Working with VIOTAS was turnkey. They embedded themselves in our business which meant they understood the unique challenges we had to overcome to enable the usage of more renewable energy. VIOTAS didn’t provide us with a cookie-cutter solution, they looked at our business first and then looked at the best course of action, to help us exceed our initial goals.”
Engineering Co-Ordinator & Project Lead
