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ADVANSOR TO DELIVER WORLD’S BIGGEST CO2 SYSTEM SO FAR Danish manufacturer Advansor is working on the biggest CO2 industrial refrigeration system known in the world, in a lettuce plant in the Netherlands. The brand new lettuce processing plant, by the Staay Food Group, will use stateof-the-art refrigeration technology and city farming-type structures to grow the lettuce indoors under special LED lights. Mark Kristensen, Advansor’s industrial sales manager, expects this to be “the biggest CO2 refrigeration project known in the world,” boasting a total capacity over 3.36 Megawatts (MW).
“Advansor is very proud to be partner in this project, which again proves that transcritical CO2 systems are not only for commercial use,” said Kristensen. Working with local contractors Huijbregts Koeltechniek BV, Kristensen said Advansor is “looking forward to the commissioning and expecting full operation during January 2017”.
KEY FEATURES Advansor has already designed the CO2 refrigeration system to reach a capacity of 3.36 MW, split between seven transcritical CO2 racks. The evaporating capacity of the system will reach a range of temperatures with different charges; including 0.53 MW at -7°C, 1.87 MW at -5°C, 0.78 MW at 0°C and 0.03MW at -28°C. in addition the systems
will also provide 0.15 MW of cooling for air conditioning purpose cooling. In total the system will use 45 Bock compressors, made up of 28 medium-temperature compressors, 14 parallel compressors, and three frost compressors. “Advansor has [also] equipped the CO2 transcritical systems with plate heat exchangers providing around 600 kW of heat reclaim,” Kristensen says. “This free heat source is to provide heating for the office facilities.” “It is not the first time we are providing systems in the MW range, but this is probably the world’s largest project to date,” he explains. “Our dedicated industrial team realises a significant growing interest from contractors, consultants and end users.” CM
GLOBAL REFRIGERATED WAREHOUSE CAPACITY INCREASES On 11 August, a survey by the Global Cold Chain Alliance found that global refrigerated warehouse capacity grew to 600 million cubic metres from 2014 to 2016. Growth was mostly from emerging markets such as China. Many emerging markets lacked the necessary network of cold-storage warehouses and vehicles, which decreased their capacity for fresh food trade.
The survey from the Global Cold Chain Alliance – an industry group representing temperature-controlled logistics companies – revealed significant market change in newly industrialised countries.
AMMONIA IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES Richard Tracy, vice-president of international programmes for the Global Cold Chain Alliance, said, “what really causes the growth of the cold chain in developing and emerging markets is the growth of disposable income”. Tracy said this could potentially be an opportunity for natural refrigerants in developing countries if technology manufacturers can scale up. He also stated, “as low-charge systems become more and more mainstream,
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as emerging markets grow capacity, the change that needs to occur to natural refrigerants will happen. It is only a matter of time”.
NEW TECHNOLOGY HELPING CORNER AMMONIA, CO2 MARKET New technologies are also driving a further increase in natural refrigerants, according to him, “there has been a good deal of exploration into CO2 and into lowcharge ammonia systems”. Tracy stated: “The cost needs to drop in order for the low-charge systems to compete with alternative systems available for that size range, but I think that it will take off when that price point is reached, as most businessmen want to have a more efficient, more cost-effective and natural solution, if possible.” LC
September 2016 Accelerate Europe
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