Neelands Group Powers Award-Winning Strack & Van Til Project

Neelands Group is proud to have served as the General Contractor for Strack & Van Til’s 130 kW Microturbine Combined Cooling, Heating, and Power (CCHP) System, which won the prestigious 2024 Midwest Clean Energy Project Award. This recognition by the Midwest Cogeneration Association highlights our commitment to delivering energy-efficient, innovative solutions that are setting a new standard in grocery retail.

Strack & Van Til’s 130 kW CCHP system provides reliable backup power during outages, maximizes energy efficiency by repurposing exhaust energy, and reduces operational costs. By embracing these advanced technologies, they are minimizing waste, lowering their carbon footprint, hedging against rising electricity prices, and ensuring long-term savings.

We partnered with Vergent Power Solutions, EMCOR Hyre Electric Co., and Martin Mechanical Contractors to bring this innovative project to life, focusing on three key pillars:

• Sustainability: Reducing environmental impact by utilizing exhaust energy for multiple purposes and lowering greenhouse gas emissions by offsetting high-carbon grid energy.
• Resilience: Providing continuous power during outages to ensure operational stability.
• Operational Savings: Lowering costs through self-generated energy and efficient system integration, particularly by reducing refrigeration energy consumption.

The system includes several crucial features: two Capstone C65 microturbines with integrated hot water heat recovery, and an 80-ton direct exhaust absorption chiller that utilizes waste heat for cooling. The system also features dual-mode controls, enabling seamless transitions between grid-connected and standalone operation during power outages, ensuring reliability and resilience.

Achieving energy and cost savings was a key goal in the design of the system, which generates over 1,000,000 kWh per year and offsets an additional 300,000+ kWh annually through an absorption chiller. Furthermore, hot water heat recovery offsets more than 1,000,000 kWh per year of gas-fired heating, significantly lowering energy expenses. By prioritizing these efficiencies, the system provides substantial operational savings while maintaining high sustainability standards, ensuring both economic and environmental benefits.

Building on our successful partnership with Longo’s on Canada’s first net-zero grocery store, this project marks Neelands’ first microgrid and energy initiative in the U.S., as well as the first integration of a CCHP system with a traditional HFC-based refrigeration system. It showcases our expertise in combining microgrid technology with conventional systems to improve both efficiency and sustainability.

For more information on how Neelands is shaping a greener future, contact us today.