Star Refrigeration, parent company of low charge ammonia manufacturer Azane, recently completed the manufacture and install of a new cold storage facility for Lineage Logistics at its new site in Great Haddon, near Peterborough, UK.
The project consists of 15,000 pallet spaces of frozen warehouse capacity supporting Lineage’s plan for growth and the industry’s need for consolidation, the company said.
Lineage is the largest temperature-controlled logistics provider in the world, with more than 1.4 billion cubic feet of storage capacity. It boasts 200 facilities in seven countries across North America, Europe and Asia.
“Star Refrigeration was able to respond to the most stringent requests for quality and efficiency, and provided a solution that exceeded the technical requirements specified to satisfy the facility’s cooling need,” said Jonathan Baker, executive director of Lineage Logistics in the UK. “We are impressed with the advantages offered by Star’s Azanefreezer 2.0 and the smooth delivery of the project.”
The Peterborough development has seen the installation of a 75,000-cubic-meter cold store plant with a refrigeration capacity of 600 kilowatts. Results from recent energy performance data analysis for the site indicate that the Azanefreezer 2.0’s annual energy usage is one-third that of UK’s ‘Best Practice’ guidelines, meaning Lineage is set to cut carbon emission by 453 tonnes (499 US tons) of CO2 per year, compared to the UK’s ‘Best Practice’ guidelines, according to Star Refrigeration.
According to the specifications provided by STS, Lineage required a 600-kilowatt refrigeration system, which was designed to achieve a nominal storage design temperature of -24 degrees Celsius. Running costs were key to the plants design, with STS specifying a minimum condenser surface of 4,800 square meters to achieve optimum condensing pressures throughout the year. Evaporator-absorbed power also was limited to 35 kilowatts, while the condenser-absorbed power should be equal to or less than 30 kilowatts in order to maximize efficiency and reduce electrical costs, the company said.
Star Refrigeration secured the contract with its offer of two independent AF300-S Azanefreezer 2.0 ammonia refrigeration plants. In order to adhere to STS’s technical specification, Star modified its existing AF300 unit by retaining the existing low-pressure receiver and compressors, but upgrading the unit’s condenser and base frame to a larger size. This allowed it to achieve a higher efficiency than that required by the tender, thus reducing running costs.
The Azanefreezer 2.0 solution delivered a number of advantages, with the biggest draws in its efficiency, affordability and lower running costs.
Also, the plant was designed to have no flanged or mechanical joints within the cold store itself, meaning there are no potential leakage points inside the store.
