Optimization Solutions for

Walk-in Coolers and Freezers

It’s important that your walk-in cooler or freezer maintains its desired temperatures at all times to keep your product cold and safe. But that doesn’t require the entire system to be running at 100% every day of the year to do so.

Deciding to enhance your refrigeration should be a no-brainer. NRM is here to help make it easy.

Whether you’re storing cold soft drinks or beer, or fresh food that needs to stay at specific temperatures, your walk-in cooler is likely the lifeblood of your business. That said, if you’re not a technician yourself, it’s also likely you try to interact with your refrigeration as little as possible.

“If it’s running, it’s fine,” right?

But if it’s not running at its best, it could be wasting your hard-earned profits in excessive energy costs. It could also be jeopardizing the very product it’s meant to keep safe if unseen issues are forcing the system’s components to operate needlessly. Much like with a car, improper operation for too long could lead to a catastrophic failure, which is the last thing your business needs.

Did you know your walk-in is sized to withstand the single hottest day of the year?

That means some components are operating just as hard in the middle of January as they are in the middle of July.

By optimizing your system so it operates based on need instead of default manufacturer settings, you could prevent wasting real dollars, better protect your inventory, and extend the life of the equipment.

Most common places we find upgrade opportunities:

No longer do your evaporator fan sets need to run 100% of the time 24/7/365. CoolTrol® can reduce their operation times by up to 70%, which decreases your monthly electric costs and extends the life of the equipment.

As most evaporator fans currently operate 100% of the time, the older, inefficient motors are continuously generating and rejecting heat into the cold space. New EC Motor technology are upgrades that drastically reduce the amount of heat created by over 60%, as well as improve overall performance.

Your door heaters are a significant source of savings, and CoolTrol® can reduce their runtimes by up to 95% in coolers and up to 60% in freezers.

If you have soft drinks coolers, CoolTrol can schedule them to be off while your business is closed, saving 100% energy during off-hours.

By allowing CoolTrol® to manage your electric defrost, defrosts will initiate based on algorithms in the controls software using coil temperatures and runtimes instead of a fixed schedule. This drastically decreases the amount of energy waste, as well as nuisance maintenance calls, for icing issues. CoolTrol® systems can be networked and save more energy through synchronizing defrosts.

Not only reduce energy consumption by upgrading from old, fluorescent lamps to LED, but improve your product display with a cooler, brighter appearance. If applicable, upgrades can include overhead in-cooler lamps as well as door-lined lamps for reach-in product coolers.

"I’m extremely happy with NRM’s controls and would recommend them to any other business owner on the island that has walk-in coolers. Brian, their installer, was very helpful throughout the whole process and showed me how I would be saving energy. I’ve had the controls for 14 years, and look forward to another 14 of saving money."

— John Averill, Owner

The quickest way to discover if your facility can benefit from our solution is to request a callback:

With some preliminary information about your business, such as current facility operations, energy costs, and most importantly your optimization goals, we can give you a general idea of how we may be able to help.

From there, we’ll decide together the next best step to take. It could be a full, no-obligation refrigeration assessment to identify your actual opportunities, or it could be checking with your utility provider if they offer any incentives for energy-efficiency projects.

CoolTrol® is the backbone of every customized, turnkey solution.

It's more than a "new" thermostat. CoolTrol gives you full control over the operation of your refrigeration system — from bypass features to one-button defrost to temp. settings on the fly, to automated temperature tracking, and more — while also providing long-term "set it and forget" energy savings.
Timed System Shutdown — A safe and easy way for employees and delivery drivers to stop cooling while they're in the walk-in
One-Button Control — Whether it's needing to bypass CoolTrol to troubleshoot, instantly start a defrost to de-ice your coils, or acknowledge an alert, there's one button to do it
LCD Digital Display — Easily read the instant operational information you need with CoolTrol's bright LCD digital display.
System Settings Menu — If you need to change setpoints, alarms, schedules, or access historical data, CoolTrol's menu is easily navigated with up and down arrows
Timed System Shutdown — A safe and easy way for employees and delivery drivers to stop cooling while they're in the walk-in
One-Button Control — Whether it's needing to bypass CoolTrol to troubleshoot, instantly start a defrost to de-ice your coils, or acknowledge an alert, there's one button to do it
LCD Digital Display — Easily read the instant operational information you need with CoolTrol's bright LCD digital display.
System Settings Menu — If you need to change setpoints, alarms, schedules, or access historical data, CoolTrol's menu is easily navigated with up and down arrows
Timed System Shutdown — A safe and easy way for employees and delivery drivers to stop cooling while they're in the walk-in
One-Button Control — Whether it's needing to bypass CoolTrol to troubleshoot, instantly start a defrost to de-ice your coils, or acknowledge an alert, there's one button to do it
LCD Digital Display — Easily read the instant operational information you need with CoolTrol's bright LCD digital display.
System Settings Menu — If you need to change setpoints, alarms, schedules, or access historical data, CoolTrol's menu is easily navigated with up and down arrows

It couldn't be easier to get.

Upgrades for your refrigeration system may be eligible for generous incentives from your utility provider that cover 50-100% of the project cost.

But incentive dollars are limited, so act now!

Frequently Asked Questions

Refrigeration and HVAC equipment are sized for THE HOTTEST DAYS of the year, and they always add a safety factor in case more is needed. But the “hottest days” only happen 20-30 times per year, which means all systems are oversized for the other 330~ days. The CoolTrol® system manages all the loads to take advantage of the oversizing, and turns off loads that don’t need to be on all the time. It also manages defrost more closely to what is needed. Some facilities have very big cold rooms so they add redundant systems meaning that capacity can sometimes be 2-4x of what is needed on average days.

In an unsafe manner, yes. But with NRM’s solution, it is perfectly safe. Implemented in over 50,000 systems to-date, the new controls keep fans running when refrigeration is ON and only cycles them OFF and whenever refrigeration is OFF. Every running fan motor generates heat and the new system run time when air movement is not necessary. Why keep the heaters running once temperature set point is reached?

NRM has earned the utility’s trust and confidence, which is the greatest guarantee we can offer. In some programs, NRM has been providing solutions since 1997 with the local utility company’s backing. We would not continue to win these contracts year over year if we didn’t produce deliver the projected savings. 

Most states have adopted laws to get citizens and companies to use less energy as it is more economical to encourage consumers to use less energy through incentives than to build a new power plant which no one wants near them. Utilities are tasked with collecting a fee on your utility bill based on usage. It may be a line item shown as “public benefit charge” or “energy conservation charge”. This money accumulates and is used to fund the incentives that pay for energy efficiency optimizations. Since it is available for all ratepayers, it is a great way to fund energy efficiency programs that give capacity back to the electrical grid while also reducing your commercial electric bill. So it’s a smart investment to participate in the programs and to take advantage of the incentives to get some of your money back through upgrades to your own equipment. The money isn’t free, but it will contribute toward qualified energy efficiency projects. It’s a great way to make a difference to your bottom line.

It really depends on how much energy a project can save… just think of it as the utility buying capacity from you to prevent overtaxing the energy grid. The power you save now becomes available to new customers. To find out what you can get, we recommend a no cost assessment of your current system that will enable us to calculate savings that we then present to your utility company who allots the amount they will pay for your capacity. If your systems already are considered partially or totally energy efficient, there may be little or no opportunity for reducing energy or qualifying for an incentive.

CoolTrol® is designed specifically for you, the end user. It is equipped with software developed by NRM and is designed to intelligently operate equipment at optimum energy efficiency.  It becomes your new refrigeration thermostat that takes advantage of every opportunity for saving energy. It has many user-friendly features and a superior user interface compared to traditional refrigeration thermostats that are primarily designed for technicians, not end users.

Success Stories

MD Food Bank

With NRM's help, they are now able to save $39,000 and 290,000 kWh every year from their commercial electric bill.

Aeronaut Brewery

With NRM's help, they are now able to save $2,600 and 17,500 kWh every year from their commercial electric bill.

Tigers Express

With NRM's help, they are now able to save $4,000 and 37,000 kWh every year from their commercial electric bill.

Vineyard Cash & Carry

With NRM's help, they are now able to save $6,500 and 40,000 kWh every year from their commercial electric bill.

Shop N' Bag Chain

With NRM's help, they are now able to save $28,000 and 184,000 kWh every year from their commercial electric bill.

Salerno's Seafood

With NRM's help, they are now able to save $4,200 and 32,500 kWh every year from their commercial electric bill.

Reeds Ferry Market

With NRM's help, they are now able to save $4,400 and 34,000 kWh every year from their commercial electric bill.

Gas Station Chain

With NRM's help, they are now able to save $7,000 and 47,000 kWh every year from their commercial electric bill.

"NRM has been outstanding through this whole program. Your technicians were very professional, and during the last project, even took the time to answer questions from my refrigeration guy so he could properly interact with the controls moving forward. And the energy savings help everyone’s bottom line. If the utility companies can’t find new ways to generate electricity, our costs are going to go up substantially, so this is a way we all can help."

— Bruce Reamer, Owner

Let's talk about your project today