Crafting Taxonomies for Understanding Power Consumption in Industrial Kitchens: A Methodological Framework and Real-World Application

Abstract

Although industrial kitchens consume significantly more energy than other commercial buildings and represent an important opportunity for sustainable energy systems, researchers have largely overlooked energy efficiency in these spaces. One of the main challenges is the diversity of kitchen configurations, complicating the characterization and generalization of research findings, including establishing a standardized methodology for assessing and benchmarking energy demand. To address this research gap, this paper proposes a methodological framework to develop taxonomies for understanding the electricity consumption in industrial kitchens. The proposed framework was developed following an extensive survey of the existing literature, and it is based on four main steps: identification of the knowledge domain, extraction of terms and concepts, data collection, and information analysis. To demonstrate the proposed framework, a case study was developed involving the participation of 50 restaurants located in Portugal. The proposed framework proved valid as it enabled the construction of a taxonomy that allows the classification of industrial kitchens according to different energy consumption-related concepts, such as costs with energy, the physical size of the kitchen, and the number of workers.