Barossa Valley winery Kaesler Wines has cut its refrigeration energy use by half after adopting cloud-based cooling control technology — demonstrating how digital innovation can deliver immediate savings and sustainability gains for wine businesses.
Kaesler Wines installed Frigid.Cloud, a cloud-connected system that automates temperature control of fermenters and cold rooms, as part of a collaborative project between Frigid.Cloud and Kaesler Wines. The project was funded through Wine Australia’s Agtech Program, which supports the trial and adoption of emerging technologies across the grape and wine sector.
Chief winemaker at Kaesler, Tim Dolan, said not only had Frigid.Cloud had a significant impact on the winery’s energy consumption, but the technology had been straightforward to both implement and operate. Dolan said that not long before hearing about Frigid.Cloud, Kaesler Wines had acquired a new fridge plant to service its 46 tanks. There was also an eagerness to take advantage of the surplus energy that was being generated by the winery’s solar system and being exported back into the grid.
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| Chief Winemaker at Kaesler Wines Tim Dolan |
“Not only did we think Frigid.Cloud could help our refrigeration plant operate more efficiently, there was also potential for us to get a better rate of return on our solar system — our export to the grid was about 20%, which was 20% I felt we could be harnessing for our own use,” Dolan explains.
Frigid.Cloud is the brainchild of an Adelaide-based company launched in 2020. The system was initially adopted by breweries, but its benefits have also begun to be appreciated by the wine sector.
Jassa Amir-Lang, the co-founder and CEO of Frigid.Cloud, explained the platform uses sensors and cloud-based analytics to monitor and control tank temperatures automatically, adjusting cooling cycles in response to fermentation stage and ambient conditions.
“The algorithms in our software integrate with your chiller to control temperature much more efficiently. So, instead of the chiller running cold all the time, the system is smart enough to understand what the cooling requirements are and adjust the energy needs accordingly,” Amir-Lang explained.
Frigid.Cloud also provides remote access, real-time alerts and historic data.
Amir-Lang said the collaboration with Kaesler Wines had provided the opportunity to demonstrate Frigid.Cloud in an environment where energy demands were concentrated during vintage and identify any adaptations necessary to suit the needs of wine producers.
“We didn’t need to make a huge number of adjustments in the end. What was somewhat unexpected was the extent of reduction in energy used by Kaesler’s chiller. We were expecting a saving of around 30-40% but when we pulled all the data and saw a 50% reduction, I was pretty shocked it was that high to be honest,” he said.
While appreciating the energy savings, Tim Dolan said he equally welcomed how easy it was to use Frigid.Cloud.
“A key thing for me was to make sure that all our staff, no matter how experienced they are with technology, could use it,” Dolan said. “With any application like this, if it’s not user-friendly, people will just get frustrated and not use it. I didn’t want that. I wanted to make sure that everyone had confidence in using the program and not have to come to me every time they wanted to turn a tank off or adjust a temperature.
“Frigid.Cloud is really straightforward to use. Combined with being able to visualise the gains we’ve seen in energy consumption, I really can’t fault it.
“The next step for us will be to see if we can use the technology to get savings from the cooling in our warehouse,” Dolan said.
Kaesler Wines use of Frigid.Cloud contributed to the winery winning the Small to Medium Business Category in the 2025 South Australian Wine Industry Association’s Environment Excellence Awards.