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Energy efficient refrigeration

28 November 2021
Energy efficient refrigeration

AMPC recently completed an energy improvement project aiming to help meat processors across Australia with energy efficient refrigeration. 

The Refrigeration Plant Energy Improvement Project will help meat processors across Australia to understand, identify and assess dozens of energy efficiency interventions related to their industrial refrigeration systems. 

The project delivered a toolkit to help small, medium, and large processors containing:

  • handbooks related to specific refrigeration systems used at different plants that outline how to identify, assess and complete a range of energy efficient activities:
    1. a two-part illustrated handbook about ammonia refrigeration units for medium and large processing sites
    2. a handbook about frieon refrigeration units for small processing plants 
  • a ‘new technology handbook’ that provides succinct and relevant information on leading-edge replacement options for cooling and heating equipment
  • a manual that helps to further determine the viability of opportunities mentioned in the handbooks. The manual gives guidance on how to initial assess energy efficient opportunities and includes a calculator to estimate energy savings and reduced energy costs.

As part of the project, AMPC’s research provider, Minus40, conducted 10 workshops across 10 different processing sites in Queensland, Victoria, and NSW. It looked at the performance of industrial refrigeration at these sites and provided recommendations to each participating processing site. 

AMPC Program Manager Matthew Deegan said, “The first workshops began in mid-2020, and the project was all about inspecting equipment at different sites. Due to COVID, we found a way to do this virtually and used augmented reality headsets. The headsets allowed for high-res video, photo, and sound, so that inspections could be done without physically entering the plant.

“This project has assembled a hierarchy of energy efficiency interventions that helps members to navigate their own starting point when it comes to refrigeration energy efficiency. This is vital for our sector, as refrigeration is the single largest user of energy on sites. This large compendium of well-illustrated and easy to read energy efficiency actions will ultimately help members improve their own environmental footprint  which is a key strategic aspiration for AMPC.”