Accounting for about 17% of the overall electricity consumption worldwide, the refrigeration sector requires improvements in energy reduction and management strategies. A feasible solution lies in the adoption of demand side management (DSM), i.e. a modification of customers’ energy demand to improve the overall system energy efficiency.

In this work, a CO2 commercial refrigeration system coupled with a cold thermal energy storage (CTES) is studied through a DSM approach. Based on a demand response (DR) strategy, the CTES is used to change the timing of end-use consumption from high electricity cost periods to low-cost periods. During off-peak times, cold thermal energy can be generated by electricity, stored in the CTES and then used during peak-hours to flatten the utility load profile.

Results show that a similar application can lead to economic savings if the system takes advantage of the different electricity prices during peak and off-peak hours.