Zero Mountain Heats Up to Cool Expenses

By raising temperatures four degrees Fahrenheit, Zero Mountain Inc. can save $1,500 per month on its electricity bill this summer at its Fort Smith warehouse.

The total electric bill at the warehouse was $66,911 during July, meaning it is saving more than 2 percent on energy costs each month.

The “setbacks” raise the temperature of the 230,000-SF warehouse from minus 5 degrees to minus 1 degree for five to six hours each afternoon. It’s a practice the cold storage company has used for six months per year since 1987.

David Blackard, vice president and chief maintenance officer of Zero Mountain in Fort Smith, said that all four of Zero Mountain’s warehouses utilize the setbacks, but only two — Fort Smith and Russellville — have entered into contracts with local power companies for additional savings. Blackard said he couldn’t estimate the energy savings at the other three warehouses.

Blackard said the change in a few degrees doesn’t raise the temperature of the products in storage. That’s largely due to the deep freeze of the product already and the core temperature of the concrete and steel surroundings in the warehouses.

“All of our customers are aware of what we’re doing,” said Blackard, who’s entering his 39th year with the company this month.

Zero Mountain, which has 278 employees and grossed $34.9 million in revenue in 2005, stores mostly poultry products for customers such as Cargill Foods, ConAgra, Simmons Foods, Tyson Foods and Wal-Mart.

The company began with a 25,000-SF limestone mine in Johnson in 1955 and now boasts more than 30 million cubic feet of below-zero storage.