Elite Energy Management now monitors walk-in coolers and freezers. Here is how it works.

Last updated: October 26, 2026. By Dan McKenna, founder, Elite Energy Management.

As of this month, Elite Energy Management scores walk-in coolers and freezers the same way it has scored rooftop HVAC units: a nightly 0 to 100 health score for every box, built from the data its refrigeration controls already produce, with a plain-English warning when a box starts working harder to hold temperature. No sensors go in the walk-in, nothing is installed, and a walk-in is priced as one unit at the same per-unit rate as a rooftop unit. This post covers what the platform reads, how the scoring works, what it is good at, and what we are not claiming yet.

Why add refrigeration to an HVAC platform?

Because the same operators own both problems, and the failure pattern is the same. A rooftop unit that is losing capacity runs longer every week to hold the same setpoint. A walk-in that is losing its grip on temperature does exactly that: the compressor runs longer, recovery after door traffic takes longer, and the box temperature holds right up until the night it does not. In both cases the equipment is reporting the strain for days before anyone notices, and in both cases the person who finds out first is whoever opens the building.

The difference is what is at stake. A rooftop unit failing on a Saturday is uncomfortable customers and an emergency service call at 2 to 5 times the planned rate. A walk-in failing on a Saturday night is that same call plus everything inside the box. For a restaurant or convenience store, the walk-in is usually the most expensive thing in the building to lose overnight, which made it the obvious next piece of equipment to score.

What does the platform read from a walk-in?

Only what the refrigeration controls already report. Elite Energy Management connects to the controller, collects readings every 60 seconds, and watches five things per box:

Signal	Why it matters
Box temperature	The outcome: is the space holding where it should
Setpoint	What the box is being asked to hold, so a changed target is not mistaken for a failing box
Coil temperature	The refrigeration side of the story: coil temperature drifting relative to box temperature points at the system before the box itself warms
Compressor runtime	The cost of the outcome: how hard the box is working to hold temperature
Defrost activity	When defrost runs and how long recovery takes, which both shift as a box degrades

Coil temperature is worth a note. On rooftop units the platform does not read coil temperature, because the thermostats and energy management systems it connects to do not report it; capacity loss on an RTU is inferred from how the space cools per minute of runtime at the same outdoor conditions. Refrigeration controllers do report coil temperature, so walk-in scoring has one more direct signal to work with than HVAC scoring does.

How does the scoring work?

The structure is the same as the rooftop units, and the methodology page describes it: each walk-in gets a baseline built from its own history, a set of rules watch for known failure signatures, and AI anomaly detection sits on top to catch the drift the rules were not written for. The score is 0 to 100, updated nightly, on the same Running well, Monitoring, and Action needed scale as every rooftop unit, so a warm walk-in in one state and a failing compressor in another land on the same ranked list the next morning.

What is different is what "normal" means. A rooftop unit's normal is shaped by outdoor temperature, which is why RTU baselines are weather-normalized. A walk-in's normal is shaped by door traffic and defrost cycles: a box in a busy kitchen looks very different at the lunch rush than at 3 a.m., and a defrost cycle produces a temperature swing that would look like a fault if the platform did not know it was coming. Walk-in baselines are built on those patterns, so the platform is comparing tonight's compressor runtime and recovery to what this particular box does at this time of day and this point in the defrost cycle, not to a generic cooler.

The earliest signal, in practice, is compressor runtime creeping up for the same hold. A box that used to run 40 percent of the hour to stay at 36 degrees and now runs 55 percent is telling you something, even though the thermometer reads 36 both times. A temperature alarm will never see that. The runtime trend does, and that is where most refrigeration problems announce themselves first: a door gasket, a dirty condenser, low charge, an evaporator fan on its way out. The platform tells you the box changed and what changed; the technician confirms the cause on site.

What does it not do yet?

Three things, stated plainly.

It does not have a published detection record. The rooftop HVAC side does: across technician-confirmed repairs, 87 percent were flagged before the technician arrived, with a median of 6 days advance warning. Those numbers come from rooftop HVAC service events and apply to rooftop HVAC. Refrigeration scoring went live this month, and its record is being accumulated the same way, logged against technician-confirmed refrigeration service events. It will be published on the methodology page when there is enough of it to report honestly, and not before.

It does not read every refrigeration controller yet. Walk-in monitoring works through the controls already on site, and new controllers are added in the order operators ask for them. If your sites run something the platform does not read yet, tell us.

It does not cover reach-ins, display cases, or ice machines. Walk-in coolers and freezers are what is scored. The broader equipment footprint follows.

What does it cost, and how do you start?

A walk-in cooler or freezer is one unit at the same price as a rooftop unit, on every tier: $5 to $12 per unit per month on standard pricing, full pricing here. A convenience store with 4 rooftop units and 2 walk-ins is 6 units, or $30 a month on Essentials, which is less than one hour of a technician's time.

Starting is the same as it has always been. If a site has connected refrigeration controls, the platform reads them, read-only, and never changes a setpoint or a defrost schedule. The first health scores show up within days of connecting. If a site has no connected refrigeration controls, basic hardware has to come first, and we can point you to the right fit. The walk-in refrigeration monitoring page has the full description.

Frequently asked questions

Do you need to install sensors in our walk-ins?

No. The platform reads the data your existing refrigeration controls already produce: box temperature, setpoint, coil temperature, compressor runtime, and defrost activity. Nothing goes in the box and nothing goes on the roof.

Does this replace our temperature alarm or food safety logging?

No. Alarms and compliance logs tell you when a box is already out of range. Elite Energy Management watches how hard the box is working to stay in range, which is the earlier signal. Keep your alarms; this is the warning before them.

Is refrigeration monitoring priced differently from HVAC?

No. A walk-in is one unit at the same per-unit price as a rooftop unit, on every tier.

Can it tell us what is wrong with the box?

It tells you what changed: longer compressor runs, slower recovery after door traffic or defrost, coil temperature drifting, holds getting harder. The technician confirms the cause on site. The value is arriving early with a hypothesis instead of late with a loss.

Why no detection rate for refrigeration yet?

Because the number would be made up. The HVAC detection rate took months of technician-confirmed service events to earn, and refrigeration scoring is weeks old. The record is being kept the same way and will be published when it means something.

If your locations already have connected refrigeration controls, a free 30-day pilot will put a health score on every walk-in alongside every rooftop unit: read-only access to your existing systems, first scores within days, no hardware, no commitment.