Empowering cold chain through innovative energy partnership

Understanding key challenges and embracing innovation

The UK’s cold chain is critical to 50% of our food and medicine supply, with 34 million cubic metres of refrigerated warehousing across the region – making it a critical part of national infrastructure.

Due to the nature of the sector, in order to store, transport and refrigerate food, it is constantly using power, and supply reliability is of paramount importance.

nBS has been Reed Boardall’s trusted energy supplier for around seven years, which has built a long-lasting partnership based on trust, transparency and innovation. And when the company needed additional support with its journey towards greater energy efficiencies and sustainability, nBS was the perfect fit.

Reed Boardall had recently renewed its power and gas supply with an nBS Flex Innovate contract, with additional guidance and trading assistance via a Flex Portfolio Solutions (FPS) framework. This allows the company to combine flexible purchasing with comprehensive, hands-on support to help take advantage of market opportunities to stay within - and often beat - its budget.

When it comes to using the energy it purchases, Reed Boardall is very much ahead of the game regarding monitoring and efficiency. The business has Automated Meter Reading (AMR) metering all across its site to facilitate data visibility and support energy management, and some years ago, the company installed Combined Heat and Power (CHP) plant to reduce reliance on imported power.

Before suggesting possible ways to save energy, the nBS team first helped Reed Boardall solve an issue that had arisen with its consumption monitoring. “We started experiencing issues with our AMR technology after installing CHP plant. The team at nBS spent a lot of time and effort to resolve this and ensure accurate data and invoicing, even though neither the CHP plant or the AMR device was installed or operated by them,” explains Managing Director Andrew Baldwin.

Clear objectives for transformative change

The nBS Energy Solutions Team then started proposing specific projects to complete Reed Boardall’s energy journey, working closely together to understand the business’s needs which resulted in proposals for further solutions.

Solar photovoltaic (PV) is a technology Reed Boardall has always been interested in but the investment didn’t previously stack up. However, with the large increases expected in network costs and green subsidies added to electricity invoices, the case for having clean, on-site generated power is looking more attractive – from both a financial and an environmental perspective.

“We are currently looking at a project to install solar PV at their site in Boroughbridge, again supporting their commitment to net zero whilst solidifying our relationship as a key strategic partner,” says Ben Whitelam, Director of Commercial and Data & Metering Services at nBS.

The implementation journey

Reed Boardall’s site in Boroughbridge, North Yorkshire spans a huge 55 acres with capacity to house 168,000 pallets, making it one of the most extensive and modern cold storage facilities in the country. It also operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so is constantly drawing power.

“This provides great potential for flexibility around energy use, so we started trialling our Demand Shift service, which enables Reed Boardall to reduce power consumption during peak times and sell back the pre-hedged volume in the shortterm markets to generate revenue,” explains Ben. “This service works really well within Reed Boardall’s Flex Innovate purchasing contract and can be seamlessly managed within the FPS framework. Over the 2024/25 winter period alone, this earned them just shy of £3,000.”

Cold storage provides an excellent opportunity for flexible energy use without breaching operational quality or agreed terms with suppliers, and as Reed Boardall already had excellent site management, being able to turn down supply for a short period during peak demand periods had no impact on the day-to-day operations or storage of food, so this was an easy win for the company.

As the UK relies on increasing volumes of renewable generation for electricity supply, there are increasing opportunities for flexibility services in the summer months too, meaning turn down should still be possible, depending on the ambient temperature.

“So far, we’ve seen improvements in overall efficiency and reliability of supply, which is helping us towards our sustainability targets all while saving money. Plus, we’re very grateful for our dedicated Client Lead and all of the team’s professional and helpful approach in supporting us,” says Andrew.

Transformative impact in the cold chain

Going forward, there are other areas that could bring benefits to Reed Boardall and the wider cold chain in meeting sustainability goals and helping to achieve Clean Power 2030 targets.

For instance, nBS also offers sub-metering to support greater efficiencies, and can assist with electric vehicle (EV) charging solutions and the electrification of fleet - having already installed 10 EV charging points across Reed Boardall’s site. Other options that could be beneficial include exporting power generated on site, and exploring Capacity Market (CM) agreements - so there are lots of key areas that nBS can help cold chain suppliers with in order to further optimise energy use, embrace new innovations and save money and emissions.

“Reed Boardall is also keen to implement technologies and processes to support being as ‘green’ a business as possible, but the challenges on its path to net zero are many. So, our focus is on helping them to optimise energy use at their site and to make that journey as carbon efficient as possible,” concludes Ben.