SUPERVALU Status Report - Commercial Building Partnerships
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is working with SUPERVALU, one of the companies participating in Commercial Building Partnerships (CBP). Here you will find more information about SUPERVALU's involvement with CBP.
SUPERVALU Background
Founded more than 135 years ago, SUPERVALU has more than 2,500 stores around the United States. The company generated $37.4 billion in fiscal year 2007, about 75% from retail grocery and pharmacy and 25% from supply chain services. SUPERVALU comprises a number of brands, including (but not limited to) Albertsons, Cub Foods, Save-A-Lot, Shop 'n Save, and Sunflower Market.
Why SUPERVALU Participates in Commercial Building Partnerships
SUPERVALU's commitment to environmental stewardship encompasses a number of sustainability initiatives, including recycling, waste reduction, employee education and engagement, and energy conservation. SUPERVALU's participation in CBP is an opportunity for the company to use NREL resources and the expertise of NREL researchers and engineers to further reduce energy use in new and existing stores.
"SUPERVALU's partnership with the NREL and DOE teams has validated many of our previous energy-saving designs. More importantly, though, the team has enhanced our ability to model entire building systems, which is uncovering additional energy saving opportunities. The results are driving changes within our prototype and in our more than 100 new and remodel projects annually."
— Holly Angell, Director of SUPERVALU's Criteria and Project Engineering Department
Where SUPERVALU is in the Process
SUPERVALU is in Stage One, Pre-Design Planning. The company has identified a new supermarket construction project in the Washington, D.C., area, and is working with NREL to develop a fully integrated design process—from enhanced daylighting to high performance refrigeration. Read more about the CBP Process.
What's Worked
SUPERVALU's involvement with the NREL CBP team provides an opportunity to explore a wide range of technologies. For some time, SUPERVALU has used integrated design when planning new and renovated stores and their collaboration with NREL has enabled SUPERVALU to take the integrated design process to the next level. As a partner, SUPERVALU can draw upon NREL's strengths, including extensive equipment testing from standard to state-of-the-shelf to state-of-the-art commercial equipment, field monitoring that increases understanding of how design strategies and technologies work in the field, and the latest in computer simulation that quantifies the energy implications of a wide range of design measures.
The details required to model and analyze both whole buildings and individual components as well as the need to assess the impact of each technology require a new level of collaboration. Staying in close touch through weekly meetings with NREL researchers helps maintain momentum.
Some of the specific technologies the SUPERVALU/NREL team has examined include:
- Advanced dehumidification systems including solid and liquid desiccant dehumidification systems
- Onsite power generation to implement combined heat and power with fuel cells
- Energy efficient refrigeration design including evaporative cooling for refrigeration condensers, floating compressor head pressures, and doors on medium temperature refrigerated cases
- Improved lighting design by reducing power density while providing adequate illuminance on product and replacing fluorescent and metal halide systems with LEDs
- Improved vestibule design to reduce infiltration, enhance thermal comfort, and reduce heating and cooling loads.
For example, NREL researchers were able to provide highly accurate, physically-based visualizations of proposed lighting solutions (see examples below). These renderings provided visual, qualitative feedback on different lighting solutions as well as quantitative illuminance information to help the design team determine whether the lighting goals were being met. Additional lighting simulations calculated the energy savings potential from the use of daylight-responsive lighting controls. NREL researchers then imported this information into the whole building energy simulation, improving the analysis of daylighting benefits relative to energy usage.
This process moves between high level and detailed examination of the building and its components and systems. SUPERVALU already had an impressive ability to analyze an entire store, but NREL researchers were able to enhance that capability.
Lessons Learned
The weekly phone meetings are key to keeping everyone engaged and on track. Working with NREL makes it more likely that SUPERVALU will explore all available design options. NREL has the resources not only to do detailed analyses, but also to monitor and verify performance after the building is complete. NREL researchers have also done hands-on testing on many building systems and technologies, which gives them a unique perspective on strategies and products for SUPERVALU's stores.
The renderings here represent four lighting design options developed by NREL researchers for a SUPERVALU supermarket. Option 1 is an open ceiling with no skylights, Option 2 is an open ceiling with skylights, Option 3 is a hard ceiling with no skylights, and Option 4 is an open ceiling with lighting mounted parallel and closer to the shelving. The "falsecolor" renderings offer an enhanced visual depiction of how much light will actually fall on each shelf under these four conditions. The color scale correlates to illuminance, in lux (lumens per square meter); falsecolor images displaying luminance, or brightness, are also possible. These would indicate candelas per square meter (cd/m2), the standard unit of luminance.
For more information, please e-mail Holly Angell at Holly.Angell@supervalu.com.
