Save on Refrigeration

In order to save you more time and money we have researched the net and come up with some really good tips on how to save on refrigeration.

Firstly all the recommendations offered with your refrigeration equipment installation and servicing guides should be adhered to, with regional deviations, in order to get the best out of it.

As well as the above here are some general tips to consider:

Display fixtures and coolers

• Avoid setting controls any lower than necessary – very often freezers are running at 30°F when they should be run at 10°F or higher.
• Keep products below clearly marked load lines. Overload leads to decrease in quality of product and increases energy use.
• The above leads to an increase in defrost requirement.
• Avoid jumbled product, which creates added load to refrigeration.
• Redress product display a number of times per day to ensure product remains below load lines, particularly after a number of customers have been through the store rummaging through your refrigerated/frozen products.
• Use of a recommended night cover can save energy. Exercise caution on this point and consult your display refrigerator manufacturer before purchase.
• Avoid a high concentration of display refrigerators in one area of the store if it makes it difficult to maintain comfort in aisles, requires a complicated air distribution system or the addition of heat to warm up the aisles.
• Install most efficient and appropriate refrigeration for the application i.e. weigh the options of a multi-deck or closed-door or well type. However, full consideration should be given to floor space required by a refrigerator relative to the type, quantity and sales volume of products compared to the energy used. Understand your needs before choosing your refrigerators. Also consult with your refrigerator manufacturer for data.
• If possible replace older, inefficient equipment with more modern and efficient units.
• Consider discontinuing/reducing internal shelf lights to reduce refrigeration requirements and the amount of energy needed to operate lighting.
• Remove alternate or all incandescent bulbs over meat displays, which force refrigerators to operate longer to maintain product temperature.
• Consider using fluorescent lights only.
• Always shut off all prep rooms at night and weekends. Set up for automatic start up when required.
• Consider unloading meat and produce displays as well as shutting off the refrigeration at night where possible. Set up a time clock to automatically turn off the refrigeration system at closing and turn it on in the morning, so refrigerated equipment temperature is reduced upon arrival of store personnel.

Compressors and condensing units

• Select air cooled units with adequately sized condensers to keep head pressures down during summer.
• Avoid locating units in a confined area or where the entering air may be affected by other units, dirty air (ash, flying debris), which will cause head pressure to run abnormally high.
• For each 10°F of condensing temperature above normal, a unit will lose 6-10% of its capacity.
• Set controls to maintain the lowest head pressure the system can operate at without short-cycling or impairing the expansion valve and coil efficiency.
• Avoid over sizing compressors for any application. Consult the manufacturer’s engineering data for the most economical operation.
• Think about the economies of multiplexing or parallel refrigeration systems – one half of compressor operation can be automatically shut off and reduce running time as much as 50% for two compressors systems.
• Avoid mixing fixtures with different coil temperature requirements – ice cream fixtures on the same system as frozen food will use approximately 10% more energy as the compressor must operate at a lower suction pressure to satisfy ice cream temperatures.

The same advice applies to produce and meat applications, prep rooms and other display fixtures.

Piping

• Avoid undersizing lines to prevent suction pressure drop, which robs capacity from compressors and wastes energy.
• Follow recommended line sizing charts for the type of refrigerant used.

Defrost systems

• Wherever possible, use a timed off period during which no refrigerant is pumped through the system. Energy is saved two says compared to using an added heat source: The compressor doesn’t operate. No electricity is used for defrost heaters.
• Demand defrost is a system of defrost initiation activated by varying methods, such as by a temperature differential across the evaporator, by measuring frost accumulation or by sensing humidity and varying the speed of the multi-circuit defrost clock.
• The system automatically compensates for varying ambient and load conditions in the store over an extended time. This can reduce the number of defrost periods required compared to methods initiated by a time clock.
• These systems tend to be hardware intensive. Therefore, the trade-off of maintenance cost versus some reduction in operation cost must be weighed.