Industry
Commercial electricity for grocery and convenience
Refrigeration-dominated with long hours and a continuous, heavy base load.
Grocery and convenience typically run a high load factor, which means supply price and contract timing carry most of the controllable cost. Refrigeration-dominated with long hours and a continuous, heavy base load.
Refrigeration keeps the base very high. Store HVAC and open cases fight each other, and the meter bills both sides of that argument.
Illustrative shape, not measured data. It shows the pattern this kind of operation tends to follow, which is why its bill behaves the way it does. Your real profile comes from your own interval data, and it is the only version that can produce a number.
What the federal building survey says
In 2018 the U.S. Energy Information Administration surveyed 6,436 commercial buildings and recorded the electricity each used. These are the surveyed buildings that match grocery and convenience, in kWh per square foot per year. Each is a whole building classed by what fills the most of it, so a single tenant space inside a larger building can use more or less.
Grocery or convenience store
47.7kWh per sq ft a year, median
The middle half of surveyed buildings used 33.2 to 70.7. Nearly all fell between 20.7 and 98.0.
A typical one is 2,400 sq ft. At the median that is about 114,456 kWh a year, roughly $1,500 a month at the US average commercial price.
91 surveyed buildings Fair
Estimate your buildingSurvey year 2018, so this is the usage pattern, not a forecast. Prices here are today's: the US average commercial price for the 12 months to the latest EIA month. The cost estimator does the same for your own floor area and state.
What drives the load
- Refrigeration racks and cases
- Anti-sweat heaters
- HVAC and dehumidification
- Lighting
- Bakery and deli equipment
The trap this industry falls into
Refrigeration and store HVAC fight each other. Open cases dump cold into the aisle, the HVAC system reheats it, and the meter bills both sides of that argument. Case doors and humidity control usually beat any supply negotiation available to the same store.
What to actually do
- Evaluate doors on open refrigerated cases
- Check anti-sweat heater controls are humidity-responsive
- Review defrost scheduling and termination
- Confirm store humidity setpoint is not driving unnecessary reheat
Which half of the bill to attack
A commercial bill splits into supply, which a competitive supplier can price where a competitive market exists, and delivery, demand, fixed charges and riders, which stay regulated whichever supplier you use. Load factor decides which half is worth your attention, and for grocery and convenience the answer is usually clear.
At a high load factor, consumption is steady and there is comparatively little peak to attack. That pushes the controllable cost toward the supply side: the rate, the contract structure and above all the timing of the renewal. For an operation like this, a contract that expires unmanaged is usually the most expensive single event in the year.
That does not make the regulated half irrelevant — rate schedule fit and billing accuracy still apply — but it does mean the sequence is different. Get the contract calendar right first.
The mechanics behind this: load factor, demand charges and rate schedule fit.
What we need to give you a real answer
- 12 months of bills
- Refrigeration system inventory and age
- Case type — open or doored
- Store hours
The item that most often turns a vague conversation into a specific finding is twelve months of peak kW. A single bill shows what you paid; twelve months of demand readings show the shape that caused it, and the shape is where the recoverable money is.
Send one recent bill. We compute the supply, delivery and demand split for your account and tell you which of the levers above is actually worth your time.