Capacity charges in grocery stores: refrigeration, defrosting, charging

Why grocery stores have their own capacity issue

A grocery store uses electricity differently from other retail. Refrigerated and frozen display cases, cold rooms and refrigeration units run around the clock and account for a large share of consumption. On top of that base come bake-off, lighting, ventilation and sometimes charging for customers. The load is even, but the peak is still high.

Most larger grocery stores have a main fuse above 63 A and therefore a capacity subscription (effektabonnemang). The halt on capacity charges (effektavgifter) in March 2026 did not apply to that subscription. Smaller stores with a fuse-based subscription (säkringsabonnemang), however, may have had their capacity charge removed or paused, depending on the grid company. Background is available in Capacity charges for businesses in 2026.

Where the peak occurs

In a grocery store's hourly values, the peak usually lands in one of three places:

• Warm summer afternoons. Refrigeration units work hardest when it is warm outside and customers open the fridge doors frequently. Stores without doors on their display cases notice this most.
• Defrosting. Freezer cases and cold rooms are defrosted with electric heating a few times a day. If several defrost cycles fall at the same time, they add to the peak, and afterwards the compressors draw extra to cool back down.
• The morning. Bake-off ovens, lighting and ventilation start ahead of opening and meet the refrigeration load that is already high.

What makes the grocery store special is that the base load cannot be switched off. Food safety comes first. The measures are therefore about shifting and spreading, not disconnecting.

Read the tariff before you calculate

How much a lower peak is worth depends on how the grid company measures. There are essentially three variants for capacity subscriptions:

• The highest hour each month. Every month is a new chance. A summer peak costs only that month.
• Peak hours. An extra fee for the highest hour on winter weekdays during the day. Then it is mornings and late mornings in November–March that count, not the summer.
• Annual subscribed capacity. The highest hour during the entire year must fit within the subscription. Then the hottest summer day is often the one that decides.

For a grocery store, the difference matters a great deal, since the refrigeration load is highest in summer while many grid companies have peak hours in winter. The same measure can therefore be worth a lot with one grid company and little with another.

Worked example: defrosting and bake-off

Example: A grocery store using 600,000 kWh per year has an average load of just under 70 kW (600,000 kWh divided by 8,760 hours is 68.5 kW). The hourly values show that the highest hour per month is around 120 kW, and that it is set at 07–08 when four freezer cases defrost at the same time as the bake-off ovens heat up.

We assume the grid company charges for the highest hour each month and use a capacity price of 50 kr per kW per month.

• Defrosting is rescheduled so that the cases defrost one at a time, an hour apart, during the night. This removes roughly 12 kW from the morning peak.
• The ovens are started one at a time instead of simultaneously. This removes roughly 8 kW.
• The peak drops from 120 to 100 kW. 20 kW × 50 kr × 12 months = 12,000 kr per year.

If the store instead has an annual subscribed capacity, the saving only counts once the subscription is lowered, and then the highest hour during the entire year must be below the new level, even on a warm day in July.

The figures are examples. How much can be shifted depends on the refrigeration system, and changes to the defrost schedule should be made by the refrigeration contractor.

Charging for customers

More grocery stores offer charging in the car park. Two fast chargers can on their own produce a peak larger than the store's entire morning load. Before charging is installed, you need to know:

• whether the chargers will be on the store's subscription or have their own connection
• what capacity they can draw and whether it can be limited when the store's load is already high
• who pays the capacity cost if the property owner or a charging operator owns the chargers

Klimatklivet (the Swedish climate investment programme) has a 2026 call for public charging, but conditions and categories change. Check with the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency (Naturvårdsverket) what applies.

What you can do yourselves

1. Find out whether you have a capacity subscription or a fuse-based subscription, and whether the store or the property owner holds the grid contract.
2. Get hourly values for twelve months and mark the highest hour each month. Note the time of day.
3. Ask the refrigeration contractor for the defrost schedule for all cases and cold rooms. Check whether several fall at the same time.
4. Check that doors and night blinds on display cases are used and working. This reduces both kWh and the summer peak.
5. Start ovens and ventilation one after another before opening.
6. Check heat recovery from the refrigeration system. Stores that heat the premises with surplus heat from refrigeration need less electric heating on cold mornings.
7. Calculate the capacity impact before installing chargers, new freezer cases or a heat pump.
8. Follow up over a summer and a winter before changing subscribed capacity.

Retail stores are not entitled to a reduction in energy tax, so capacity and the electricity contract are where the savings lie. If you would like help reviewing your grid invoice, Savera can carry out an independent review.