Abstract

Cold storage systems represent a substantial electricity burden for food-processing micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises. This study developed a smart monitoring and multicriteria operational evaluation system to support energy-aware cold storage management. The system integrated room temperature, operating setpoint, door status, and electrical power data, and was evaluated on a 15 m³ cold storage unit operated predominantly at a −20 °C setpoint. Electrical parameters were measured using a power meter, while operational performance was assessed using weighted criteria comprising energy performance, temperature stability, and door-opening disturbance. The unit exhibited an average active power of 2.14 kW and an average daily energy consumption of 50.92 kWh/day, corresponding to an estimated electricity cost of IDR 73,568/day or IDR 2.21 million/month. The multicriteria operational score ranged from 0.290 to 0.720, indicating that all evaluated operating days were suboptimal, primarily because of limitations in temperature stability. These findings show that cold storage performance cannot be assessed from energy consumption alone and that integrated monitoring with multicriteria evaluation can provide practical decision-support information for improving energy management in micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises cold storage operations.