TJ's Neighborhood Market

While New England has been NRM’s most noticeable territory when it comes to utility energy-efficiency program participation—after all, our company started in Massachusetts over 25 years ago—there are a growing number of other states with utility companies trying to do more for their small business customers. Even in Johnston, SC—population just a hair over 2,000—NRM was able to help a local business owner cut their energy costs, and better prevent damaging product loss.

Mr. TJ Nelson and his business, TJ’s Neighborhood Market, were able to take advantage of not just one unique measure for his commercial refrigeration system, but several, that all added up to impactful yearly savings.

Working with NRM’s local advisor, Ben, TJ learned pretty quickly all of the areas his system could likely be upgraded. All it took was a brief assessment of the system, which Ben then sent to our engineers to calculate TJ’s potential improvements. What Ben found were opportunities in evaporator fan runtimes, evaporator fan motors, in-cooler lighting, anti-sweat door heaters, his novelty drink coolers, and even on-site temperature alarms.

Combined, these measures were able to recoup over 15,000 kWh in energy usage per year. When accounting for South Carolina’s electric rate, this equals about $1,500 in actual dollars saved annually.

And the cherry on top: an 85% incentive from their utility provider. Which meant that by month 8, NRM’s solution started paying for itself.