A chip off the electricity costs
21st August 2026
USA: A distributed control system and autonomous AI-application is said to have enabled a US food producer to achieve energy savings of 17%.
Industrial automation company Rockwell has partnered its PlantPAx distributed control system with a new autonomous AI-application developed by Actemium which continuously selects energy‑efficient operating configurations for industrial refrigeration equipment.
Actemium created the solution, known as Real-Time Coefficient of Performance (RtCOP), for a large producer of frozen french fry products. To date, RtCOP has helped the food producer increase energy efficiency by 17%, delivering an estimated $130,000 annual savings per site.
The solution also reduces the strain on refrigeration assets, helping improve long‑term equipment reliability.
RtCOP is said to function like an always-on virtual operator, continuously analysing system capacities, efficiencies and environmental conditions in real time to determine and implement energy-efficient combinations of compressors, condensers and evaporators.
“Autonomous optimisation can help food producers conserve energy, reduce costs and ease demands on their workforce,” said Jim Gillis, general manager, Actemium Atlantic Canada. “Energy‑based equipment ranking that is performed continuously and consistently is something human operators simply can’t do in real time. This solution has the potential to transform refrigeration across food manufacturing.”
The solution runs on Rockwell Automation’s PlantPAx DCS, which provides real-time data access, processing speed and system transparency to enable continuous, autonomous optimisation.
Actemium is helping the food producer scale the solution across its fleet of refrigeration plants. Key performance indicator dashboards enable site-to-site visibility into performance and benchmarking of system efficiency.
