Americold’s Secret to Surviving Power Outages

Ever wondered how cold storage facilities protect vital goods during a major power outage? Brian Dunn, SVP of Facilities & Engineering and Head of Sustainability at Americold, reveals the incredible engineering and strategic planning that allows their warehouses to maintain sub-zero temperatures for up to a week. Discover how Americold leverages AI, energy efficiency, and robust risk resilience programs to ensure an unbroken cold chain, even in the face of natural disasters like hurricanes. Learn about the unique challenges and innovations driving the fastest-growing sector in warehousing today.

Americold’s cold storage facilities can maintain safe temperatures for up to a week during a complete power outage, the company’s senior vice president of facilities and engineering said in a recent interview — a resilience capability that the company has already deployed during hurricane-related blackouts across multiple sites.

The thermal holding capacity stems from how the buildings are engineered. Walls and roofs are insulated roughly 15 to 20 times more than a household freezer, using insulated metal panels and heavily engineered roof structures. That accumulated thermal mass functions like a battery, allowing operators to pre-cool facilities ahead of a storm, lock down the doors, and then monitor internal temperatures remotely even when the grid is down.

“A cold storage facility is not built like a normal facility. They are very highly engineered. These buildings — you can shut these buildings down. And because of the thermal load that you have in there, it’s like a battery. So when you want to coast and pull the power down based off of predictability, you could keep those buildings cold sometimes for a week at a time if you had to,” said Brian Dunn, Americold’s Senior Vice President of Facilities and Engineering and Head of Sustainability.

The same thermal principle underpins Americold’s AI-driven refrigeration strategy. The system monitors real-time grid conditions, predicts demand-response events and peak pricing windows, and pre-cools buildings in advance so compressors can coast when electricity rates spike. Dunn cited one facility where AI identified an evaporator unit that was running continuously but delivering minimal cooling benefit. After overriding technician interventions, the AI reduced that unit’s runtime from roughly 100% down to about 5% — a significant reduction for motors running at approximately 5 horsepower each.

Energy costs are rising regardless of efficiency gains. Dunn said U.S. electricity prices increased approximately 5% last year and are projected to rise another 5% annually for at least the next two years, with some markets seeing increases of 8%. To offset that pressure, Americold has enrolled about 175 facilities in the Global Cold Chain Alliance’s Energy Excellence program, which benchmarks and shares best practices across the industry. Dunn emphasized that human vigilance — spotting an open man door on a 100-degree day at a dock held to 35 degrees, or sealing air leaks — remains as important as any technology investment.

The company is also leaning on its balance sheet depth and operational experience to weather a period of capacity overcorrection in the cold storage market. Americold was the first publicly traded cold storage REIT, and the attention that drew brought a wave of speculative construction. Over the past four years since COVID, Dunn said, that excess capacity has begun to stabilize and occupancy is recovering as less-experienced operators exit the market. Differentiation, he argued, comes from value-added services such as “rainbow pallets” — mixed-SKU pallet builds for ice cream or other products — rather than rate competition alone.

Looking ahead, Dunn identified pharmaceuticals and other temperature-sensitive products as a growing opportunity alongside Americold’s predominantly food-focused book of business. The company handled COVID-19 vaccine storage and said it remains in active discussions with manufacturers across additional cold-chain-eligible categories, including florals and heavy metals. Personalized biologics such as mRNA-based therapies could represent further demand if those products reach commercial scale.

• Americold cold storage buildings are insulated 15 to 20 times more than a household freezer, enabling up to a week of temperature preservation during full power outages.
• U.S. energy prices rose roughly 5% last year and are expected to climb another 5% annually for at least two more years, pressuring cold chain operators’ cost structures.
• Americold has enrolled approximately 175 facilities in the Global Cold Chain Alliance’s Energy Excellence program and is deploying refrigeration AI to cut compressor runtime and reduce peak-demand electricity costs.

This Summary is generated thanks to a transcription of the interview, for the full interview please enjoy the video above.