Started in 1936 by Ed and Garnette Tersteeg, Tersteeg’s Market and Holiday Gas has been a cornerstone family business in the Redwood Falls community for 80 years. In 1967, Jim succeeded his father in ownership of the business. Their current location at 1111 East Bridge Street has been their base of operation since 1983 and employs over 130 people.
This longevity has provided them the ability to make long-term investments in their facility to save energy and reduce overall operating costs. For assistance they turned to Redwood Falls Public Utilities to identify potential equipment upgrades and provide utility rebates.
The partnership with Redwood Falls Public Utilities started many years ago with Jim and is continuing with the next generation as BJ, Jim’s son, takes a larger role in day-to-day management. BJ has aggressively pursued continual efficiency improvements at the store and reached out to Redwood Falls Public Utilities for technical and financial assistance. Over the last 10 years, this partnership has focused on a better understanding of consumption patterns at the store and making sizable investments in equipment upgrades more economical.
Efficiency improvements have included lighting retrofits; removal of old, inefficient “coffin” cases (open top, reach-in freezers); installation of new glass door freezers with ECM evaporator fans and LED lighting; addition of solid glass doors to the reach-in milk refrigerators; and a new central refrigeration system with better controls.
The results have been staggering. Not only has Tersteeg’s reduced their energy consumption by 23% and their peak demand by 19% since 2006 (during a time when many business have electricity usage due to larger computer and air conditioning loads), but their energy bills have become more predictable.
Below you can see the old, inefficient, open dairy case on the left, replaced by new and energy efficient model on the right. And for the energy geeks out there, we’ve also included a couple graphs showing the decline in energy consumption as well as the decrease in demand billing.
Tersteeg’s is making investments for the future, and their efforts will reap benefits today as well as for the next generation.
