Cool Reaction ’ s cutting-edge cold room project for Plennegy was focused on optimising energy efficiency and storage capabilities .
PROJECT
During commissioning , only the north side of the facility was yet live for cooling until while the power insufficiency was resolved .
Enhancing efficiency and storage in a state-of-the-art cold room project
By Eamonn Ryan
Cool Reaction ’ s cutting-edge cold room project for Plennegy was focused on optimising energy efficiency and storage capabilities .
Design specifications were for a seed storage cold room of 3 600m ² with Relative Humidity ( RH ) of > 45 % and a temperature range of 10-14 ° C with a monitoring system , as well as fire detection and automated sliding doors . Fire detection provided some technical difficulty which was solved with mechanical smoke extraction with drop out panels .
Graham Bloom , owner of Cool Reaction - who was the project manager who performed the function of consulting engineer informally - was actively involved in the refrigeration side of the project .
Bloom explains : Plennegy is the owner or Starke Ayres , which owns the entire site . Plennegy ’ s client is Corteva Agrosciences a division of Dow DuPont ( US ), with the latter renting space from Starke Ayres for seed storage . “ Cool Reaction has had a long-term relationship with Starke Ayres . Over the past years we have successfully completed many projects for them , locally and in Africa , most recently Mozambique .
“ We were commissioned by the Plennegy Group to find a solution for energy efficient refrigeration equipment for 3 500m 2 . The physical room size was 100m x 35m sloping from 12m to 8m in height and was supplied by Dalucon . The required capacity of the refrigeration equipment was 525 kW .”
“ What is unique about the project ,” says Bloom , “ is that the cold facility has not been installed inside a warehouse - the roof and side walls are polyurethane injected chromodek .”
Cool Reaction approached Daikin for a solution for the project and they worked together in coming to a conclusion . Cool Reaction was responsible for the supplying , installing and commissioning of all the refrigeration equipment , the Munters dehumidification systems and the electrical control wiring . “ We supplied 450m of heavy-duty cable ladders in order to support the hanging of 40 evaporator coils and to run the refrigerant piping . Steel structures were built to house 14 condensing units and two dehumidification plants ,” adds Bloom .
The refrigeration installation consisted of hanging the evaporator coils , the placement of the condensing and the dehumidification units including all galvanised duct work and R410 copper piping . Daikin assisted in the commissioning of all systems .
The electrical control wiring consisted of wiring of the control system which is used for monitoring and changing of settings and parameters where required . Cool Reaction was also involved in supplying and fitting of electrical gate motors for opening and closing of the cold room sliding doors . “ The air curtains were fitted by our teams above each door using motion sensors to switch on and off ,” he says .
“ With the hard work of Cool Reaction ’ s committed teams , we were able to complete this project within 3.5 months . We are exceptionally proud of our teams for their high-quality work which resulted in the success of the project ,” says Bloom .
All photos by © Eamonn Ryan / Cold Link Africa
The project was done to accommodate Corteva Agriscience ’ s seed warehouse .
“ RTX 600 V Domino Zero Electronic Expansion valve control has about 50 configurable parameter settings and options .
COLD LINK AFRICA • July / August 2023 www . coldlinkafrica . co . za 23