Star Refrigeration, a Glasgow, U.K. based industrial refrigeration company, has created a “six-stage” roadmap for cold storage facilities to help users optimize energy consumption and reduce their carbon footprint.
Star, which provides low-charge ammonia and CO2-based refrigeration systems, developed the roadmap in response to rising energy prices, according to the summary on Star’s website.
For refrigeration systems, “energy accounts for approximately 60% – 80% of total spend over the life of the plant,” says Star.
Star’s Director of Sales David Wallace said on the company website that the cumulative effect small changes “can be quite incredible.”
“The roadmap gives a clear route to achieving success through practical insight into effective techniques which have been proven to reduce energy costs and carbon emissions,” said Wallace.
Star’s roadmap consists of six targets for users to consider: planning, building construction, refrigeration system and design, maintenance, analysis and monitoring, as well as system controls optimization:
- Planning targets the site location and its layout, reducing the heat load in the store and addressing temperature variations.
- Building construction targets ways to reduce heat ingress by reviewing “materials used in the building and the configuration of its doors, the jointing and vapour seals on individual panels.”
- Refrigeration system and design “target the use of the correct system for the site’s specific needs, including appropriate sizing, functionality, refrigerant type and defrosting methodology, as well as the inclusion of performance-enhancing technologies and controls.”
- A proactive maintenance regime and a robust response plan should be “geared towards detecting potential problems at an early stage, avoiding breakdowns and ensuring system longevity.”
- System analysis and monitoring target ongoing collection of data about the system’s performance and its power consumption, which can “identify possible improvements and energy and carbon savings.”
- According to Star’s more detailed “smart thinking” section of the roadmap, system controls optimization targets “all of the information gleaned from the data collection and analysis phase to introduce adjustments to fine tune your system’s controls and optimise them to produce tangible savings annually”.
