The Texas-based H-E-B grocery store chain served by Enchanted Rock’s microgrids exemplifies the comprehensive benefits of a microgrid backup solution in a retail setting.
Among retail businesses, grocery stores are especially vulnerable to power outages. They have freezers full of food that must be kept at sub-zero temperatures, prepared foods that will spoil quickly if not kept at the correct temperature, perishable foods such as dairy, fish and meat that must be properly cooled and, often, a pharmacy with temperature sensitive medicines.
Even relatively short power outages can be costly to grocers. Federal government guidelines recommend discarding any perishable foods, such as meat, fish, poultry and eggs, that have been held at temperatures above 40 degrees Fahrenheit for longer than two hours. The value of perishable foods runs anywhere from about $400,000 to $900,000 at a single store, according to a report from Western Illinois University.
Enchanted Rock’s resiliency microgrids run on natural gas, which has a robust underground supply chain that rarely becomes disrupted.
In addition, losses from power outages are commonly not covered by insurance. Although some policies cover perishables with a spoilage rider, grocers still tend to face high losses because most insurance policies have a 12- to 24-hour waiting period. Contrarily, most spoilage occurs within the first three hours after an outage.
Faced with the potential of high outage-related losses, H-E-B needed a solution. The grocery chain was founded at the beginning of the 20th Century, and it has grown into an enterprise with $23 billion in annual sales and more than 370 stores in the U.S. and Mexico. Forty-five of the stores operate in the Houston area, which is especially vulnerable to outages caused by the high winds and flooding from storms sweeping across the Gulf of Mexico during hurricane season.
H-E-B Houston area stores had experienced intermittent power outages, according to George Presses, H-E-B vice president of fuel and energy. Presses felt the store needed a reliable backup power system that would keep them up and running “without any interruption to our partners, customers, or communities due to a weather event or a general, short term grid outage.”
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