Boston: Schneider Electric announced November 8 that it will deliver Finland’s largest industrial microgrid and an advanced IoT-enabled building automation system for grocery chain Lidl’s new distribution center in Järvenpää, Finland.
The unique distribution center that will cover a surface of 60,000 m2, the largest in Finland and equivalent to 10 football fields in size, will serve Southern Finland’s grocery stores and fully start operations at the beginning of 2019.
With Schneider Electric’s microgrid offer, which includes EcoStruxure Microgrid Advisor – a cloud-based solution that leverages analytics to control and optimize energy resources for sustainable and cost-effective facility performance – the distribution center will reach a high level of energy efficiency based on 100% renewable energy. The microgrid will include a 1600-panel solar power plant on the building’s roof, enabling solar-generated electricity to be utilized in the co-generation of heating and cooling. The heat recovered from the distribution center’s refrigeration equipment and systems will be used for the building’s energy needs and supplied to Järvenpää’s residents, heating water for approximately 500 private homes.
The distribution center’s microgrid will work with a battery energy storage system. The storage will play an important role in equalizing consumption spikes and ensuring continuous power distribution. Should the national power grid become temporarily overburdened, the amount of grid electricity consumed by Lidl’s distribution center can be reduced by putting the battery storage to use.
“Our goal is to build the Nordic countries’ most environmentally-friendly grocery distribution center,” added Simo Siitonen, Energy Management Manager at Lidl Finland. “Strict energy technical targets have been set for the building’s entire lifecycle. The building is carbon neutral and the energy cost savings goal is over 50%.