The Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance (the Alliance) is a non-profit group of electric utilities, state governments, public interest groups, and industry representatives committed to bringing affordable, energy-efficient products and services to the marketplace. The Evaporator Fan Variable Frequency Drive (VFD) Market Transformation Initiative (the Initiative) was sponsored by the Alliance to make variable frequency drives an industry standard for evaporator fans in refrigerated warehouses in the Northwest. The goal was to demonstrate energy efficiency benefits and also non-energy advantages such as positive impacts on product quality. The target markets for the Initiative were controlled atmosphere (CA) storage warehouses (used for long-term storage of tree fruit) and cold storage warehouses (typically used for bulk frozen foods). The Initiative’s activities were intended to overcome concerns about VFD reliability and fan motor failure, variation in warehouse temperatures, electrical harmonics and fruit quality.
