Posted by As a business, you know that your utility company charges you for how much energy you use each cycle. Energy is measured in kilowatt hours (kWh), and you pay for the total amount of kWh you’ve used for the month. That’s the straightforward part of your energy bill. There’s another type of charge that factors into how much you pay the utility company each month. Many energy plans also include charges
for peak demand. Peak demand charges reflect the highest kilowatt usage during a continuous fifteen-minute period for the month. Every appliance needs to draw a certain number of watts in order to operate, so the more stuff that’s plugged in and turned on, the more watts of energy your restaurant needs in order to be operational. The “demand charge” is meant to reflect the amount of generation capacity the utility company reserves to make sure a business has enough energy. And unfortunately,
utility companies base this demand charge on your highest 15 minutes of usage during any given month. Simply put, the utility company charges for how much energy capacity your business needs for the month. So what is this costing you? Peak charges vary wildly from $1/kW to $20/kW. Typically, quick serve restaurants have peak demand levels between 20kW (Dunkin Donuts) and 120 kW (McDonalds). Depending on your rate plan and your size, your peak demand costs can be quite different. When your restaurant’s energy use spikes, your peak usage can spike too Many variables can cause your
peak demand to increase. When one small factor changes in a month, your demand charge can spike significantly. For example, if a rapid cycling freezer causes peak to spike one month, you could be stuck paying inflated charges the next month. PlotWatt’s patent-pending algorithms detect abnormally high spikes in energy use. This helps you minimize demand spikes, and could potentially save you hundreds of dollars a
month. PlotWatt tells you when your daily energy demand spikes occur and lets you how know high these spikes are. PlotWatt’s patent-pending algorithms also tell you whether those energy spikes are normal based on your store’s unique operating behavior. This knowledge makes you aware of the critical time periods when your demand spikes occur so that you can easily lower those spikes. Because PlotWatt provides daily feedback on your energy spikes, you can keep track of the highest peak for
your billing period. This helps you change your behavior much more quickly so that you don’t set a new peak and waste money paying for that abnormally high peak the next month. Not knowing about your peak can cost you big. PlotWatt hands you the information you need to put hundreds of dollars back in your pocket each month.What is Peak?
What Causes Your Peak to Increase?
PlotWatt Can Help You Keep Peak to a Minimum
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Operations
03 Freezer / Peak Demand Off (3 sec)
Freezer
You can use the
Freezer
button to set the freezer temperature or
to activate Power Freeze.
• Press
Freezer
repeatedly to select a desired temperature
between 5 °F (-15 °C) and -8 °F (-23 °C).
- The temperature indicator displays the currently set or
selected temperature.
•
To activate Power Freeze, press
Freezer
repeatedly until the
Power Freeze indicator (
) lights up.
- To deactivate Power Freeze, simply press
Freezer
again
while the Power Freeze function is on.
- Power Freeze speeds up the freezing process at maximum
power to lower the freezer temperature. The Power Freeze
process continues to run for several hours, and then turns
off and the freezer returns to the previous temperature
setting.
- To freeze large amounts of food, activate Power Freeze for
at least 20 hours before putting the food in the freezer.
NOTE
Using Power Freeze increases power consumption. Make sure you
turn it off manually if you no longer need it, and then select the
desired freezer temperature.
Peak Demand Off
The Peak Demand Off function activates/deactivates Smart Grid.
(See Page
53
)
Press
Freezer
for 3 seconds to set/clear the Peak Demand Off
function.
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2020-04-21
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