PROJECT
INCORPORATING COLD CHAIN
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2
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specifications while Phase 2 was still under
construction directly next door (including
demolishing the building butting onto the
Phase 1 cold room). All credit must go to
Abbeydale for the extremely professional
manner in which planning and execution of
these operations were carried out.
Another unexpected challenge that
materialised during the course of the
project was that the main power supply
cable to the Phase 1 refrigeration system
ran right through the middle of the Phase
2 demolition site. This cable had to be
carefully avoided and not damaged as
the power it provided was running the
entire electrical supply to Phase 1 which
was holding many millions of rands worth
of stock. The demolition went ahead and
the cable survived to tell the tale without
any glitches.
Additionally, it must be noted that
the total project duration was roughly 18
months with hundreds of technicians and
artisans on site at any given time under
extreme pressure, but safety was never
neglected and no one was hurt.
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SUSTAINABILITY MATTERS
1. HC Heat’s evaporators used for Phase 1 room.
2. Stab-a-load vertical opening electric doors (6m high opening).
3. Cold Room 1’s large vertical sliding doors with the evaporators located above.
4. Doorway from Cold Room 1 to the freezer.
5. Colcoil evaporator in despatch.
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Installing the plant in the cool plant
room environment and using oversized
condensers ensures that compressors
run with the optimal coefficient of
performance (COP) for an air-cooled
synthetic refrigerant plant by keeping
condensing temperatures right down. This
was critical as the electrical consumption
for a plant of this scale is significant in the
overall operation costs.
Another key feature to the efficiency
of this plant is the extra capacity installed,
which means that the plant operates with
a duty cycle of five minutes on, 10 minutes
off, reducing kWH usage by not labouring
all day long.
A unique and often overlooked
sustainable feature of this project was that
for Phase 2 of the project, an existing
www.coldlinkafrica.co.za
1 500m² cold room was removed to make
way for a new one twice as high as the
old one. The original brief was to demolish
the room with a ball and chain as the tight
timeline did not allow for weeks of careful
dismantling to save the panels and plant.
We could not stand by and watch all
that polystyrene and steel go from a fully
functional cold room to an enormous
mess of polystyrene balls on a dump site.
After much discussion with the client, it
was agreed that if we mobilised a large
enough work force with precise execution
of dismantling panels straight onto trucks
(as there wasn’t enough space to store the
goods on site), Imperial would agree to let
us reclaim the cold room.
In the end, the cost of demolishing the
cold room was saved and instead Imperial
received money for its reclaimed cold
room. The entire structure now stands in
Brits at a factory that makes ice lollies,
providing value once again.
The client was
extremely appreciative of
the fact that they didn’t
miss a day of operation
during the entire
construction period.
VALIDATION PROCESS
To sign a cold room off to be ready for
the introduction of their clients’ products,
Imperial Logistics runs a very stringent
commissioning process which they call
“validation”. During the validation period,
temperatures are logged at the various
points around the room and various units
are tripped to see how the system would
handle it. Fans are also tripped to see the
impact of failures to make sure that even
COLD LINK AFRICA • July/August 2019