Optimized cooling for Colruyt Group

Challenge

More efficient cooling installations for lower impact

Colruyt Group strives to reduce its ecological footprint by continuously improving the performance of its cooling systems. Together with Flanders Make, they developed a method to analyse and optimise cooling controllers without lengthy tests on real installations.

Technologies

Virtual model as a test environment

An offline model of the cooling system was built on which various Model Predictive Control (MPC) controllers were tested. The performance of the existing controller was compared with that of an optimal MPC controller, after which targeted improvements could be implemented.

Reasoning and Acting Technologies

For intelligent decision-making and the orchestration of (autonomous) actions.

Result

Better performance, longer service life

The modified controller ensures smoother switch-on and switch-off cycles, increases energy efficiency and extends the service life of the systems. In this way, Colruyt achieves sustainable gains without major replacements.