The Coolest Revolution: ELIoT’s plug and play power cuts carbon and costs.
From coffee to carbon cuts: climate tech startup ELIoT energy and local Fishermans Bend café Six Fifty Sips are proving that small businesses can drive big energy change - one smart battery at a time.
Photos by Linda Catalano
In the fight against climate change, one of the most surprising battlegrounds is quietly humming in the corner of your local shop: the fridge. These essential coolers may keep drinks cold and food fresh, but they’re also a significant contributor to Greenhouse gas emissions - the indirect carbon footprint hidden in the supply chains of retail and hospitality.
For David Hauser, founder of Melbourne-based cleantech startup ELIoT Energy, that invisible impact represents not just a problem, but a powerful opportunity for innovation.
ELIoT’s smart batteries, developed and piloted in Fishermans Bend with the support of FB IDEAs, are reframing the conversation around sustainability in the food and beverage sector. With their plug-and-play design, these devices allow businesses to reduce emissions and cut costs without replacing perfectly functional equipment.
“Our goal is to accelerate the transition to affordable green energy in a way that’s practical, cost-effective, and doesn’t require ripping out existing systems,” says Hauser. “Our batteries can be retrofitted and installed in minutes.”
From Solar to Service: How It Works
The battery charges during periods of low grid emissions, typically late morning to early afternoon when solar generation peaks and powers commercial refrigeration units for the remainder of the day. The smart device monitors grid emission intensity, optimises for sustainability, and tracks emissions reductions in real time via the cloud.
The results are compelling. During an October 2024 pilot in a Melbourne supermarket, ELIoT’s battery system reduced carbon emissions from a semi-vertical chiller by 41% and cut energy costs by 35%—from $18 to $11.62. In South Australia, where renewables now dominate the grid, the technology delivered an 89% emissions reduction and more than 100% cost savings.
Beyond emissions, the solution tackles another systemic issue in the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector: premature fridge replacement. ELIoT’s battery system can be retrofitted “It’s common practice to swap out older fridges to save energy, even if they’re still functional,” Hauser says. “That leads to e-waste and shortened investment cycles. We’re offering a smarter, cleaner upgrade without the landfill as our solution can be retrofitted.”
To remove financial barriers, ELIoT is rolling out a low-cost monthly subscription model that makes the tech accessible to small and medium enterprises without the need for large upfront investments. “Affordability is essential if we want this transition to be genuinely inclusive,” he adds.
A Community-Powered Test Case
At the heart of the Fishermans Bend pilot is a local partnership with café operators Mike and Samantha Pickles at Six Fifty Sips. Located in the light-drenched lobby of the Citiport building, their café serves as both caffeine hotspot and living lab. The prototype battery, still in visible casing while the final version will be seamlessly integrated, has been installed behind the café's main fridge, powering its operation while feeding back live performance data.
The trial has already delivered valuable insights. Fine-tuning energy timing, understanding variations in fridge performance, and navigating building-level power demands have all helped inform the battery’s next iteration. “Designing for retrofit means adapting to the messiness of the real world. It allows businesses to engage with little outlay” says Hauser. “That’s where the lessons and the innovation happen.”
What’s Next for ELIoT?
The project’s momentum is growing. ELIoT recently won the City of Melbourne’s Open Innovation Competition, which focused on urban energy storage solutions, and the startup has been tapped by PepsiCo to join its Asia-Pacific Greenhouse Accelerator. The aim? To decarbonise point-of-sale refrigeration including the millions of vending machines and display fridges used by global beverage brands which contribute significantly to Scope 3 emissions across the supply chain.
Looking ahead, ELIoT is exploring how battery systems can be built directly into the footprints of larger commercial chillers tucking storage neatly into base cavities to reclaim space and streamline integration. “It’s about elegant efficiency,” says Hauser. “We’re not just building for net zero, we’re building for the real world.”
From suburban supermarkets to sunlit cafés and multinational retail chains, ELIoT Energy’s quiet, battery-powered revolution is humming into the future - one fridge at a time.
