When Hurricane Sandy hit in 2012, many ShopRite stores in New Jersey and Long Island lost power — and millions of dollars. Outages stretched for over a week, spoiling refrigerated inventory and preventing sales. After this disaster, ShopRite realized it needed a truly resilient energy solution. Many grid outage remedies are both expensive and ineffective. A grocery store could easily spend $30,000 on dry ice that lasts only a few hours to temporarily keep goods refrigerated. Likewise, diesel backup generators cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per store, are prone to failures during start-up, and are difficult to keep fueled during an emergency. Instead, ShopRite chose to partner with Unison Energy, which installs, owns, and operates microgrids that offer both day-one cost

Join for free to read