Food-Packing Company Saves 30% in Energy with CO2 Brine Chiller
March 11, 2022
A U.K. food-packing company has saved 120,000kWh, equalling 30% of the company’s energy consumption, with a new CO2 (R744) brine chiller from Danish OEM Advansor.
The Advansor CO2 chiller was installed by U.K. contractor Greencold Limited for process cooling and replaced an old HFC unit. The solution, which has been nominated for the Chiller of the Year Award by U.K. outlet ACR News, includes a gas cooler and an enclosure.
The CO2 chiller chosen by the food processor, which has not been named, is a 300kW (85.3TR) SteelX medium-temperature-only unit with four compressors, according to Advansor. In addition to the significant energy savings, the food processor has also saved 18,720m3 (661,091ft3) of water per year and reduced its carbon footprint by 600 metric tons of CO2e.
“We have an excellent relationship with Advansor and are very satisfied with their technical advice. We chose Advansor because CO2 was a key requirement, and they are the leading supplier. Our client wanted a sustainable solution based 100% on natural refrigerants to help reach their goal to have net-zero carbon emissions by 2040 across operations. Both we and our customer are very satisfied with the solution providing 30% energy savings, and at the same time, we have experienced good service and high quality. ”
SteelX CO2 Chiller
The SteelX is the “original” CO2 rack from Advansor and is billed as fully customizable, meeting the demands of both supermarkets and industrial end users. Standard equipment on the SteelX includes frequency inverters on the MT1 compressor, a patented internal heat exchanger in the receiver, hot-gas dump, liquid injection and filter driers.
Optional features include heat recovery, permanent magnet motors, ejector technology, gas cooler bypass, a pump module and subcooler. The Advansor SteelX is ISO 9001:2015 certified.
The British food packaging company is not the only end user to save energy with the SteelX. Belgian retailer Delhaize saved up to 45% in energy with a solution that included heat recovery, which supplied heating for the storage area of the Brussels store and for a hot-water battery in the store’s air-handling unit.
A municipal ice rink in Advansor’s home town of Aarhus, Denmark, has also saved 50% in energy with a SteelX rack and a new floor with CO2 pipes underneath rather than a traditional water/glycol secondary system.