This was an all-new light industrial project which began February 2022 and ended October 2022 . What made the project special is that this was the first industrial type CO 2 unit manufactured locally by SCM Ref Africa .
INCORPORATING COLD CHAIN
PROJECT
All images supplied by SCM Ref Africa
From an environmental perspective , the facility has future proofed itself by going with a CO2 system .
The SCM Frigo .
The first of many CO 2 projects for SCM Ref Africa By Jason Meredith , SCM Ref Africa mechanical engineer
This was an all-new light industrial project which began February 2022 and ended October 2022 . What made the project special is that this was the first industrial type CO 2 unit manufactured locally by SCM Ref Africa .
Redline Consulting Engineers were approached by a local DC for a national business to design a new state of the art distribution facility in Durban , using the latest technologies and keeping longevity as well as reliability in mind . The project called for the new distribution facility to have a centralised transcritical CO 2
( R744 ) booster unit installed to provide cooling to the two holding rooms onsite , one being a freezer and the other a coldroom .
Result Refrigeration was awarded the project to supply the centralised transcritical CO 2 booster unit . Metraclark along with SCM Ref Africa was approached by Result Refrigeration to design and supply the best possible CO 2
( R744 ) transcritical booster rack to service the group ’ s cold and freezer rooms . The refrigeration system for this project was based on a locally manufactured SCM Frigo transcritical CO 2
( R744 ) refrigeration system . The system is designed to supply 150kWR at -8 ° C for the coldrooms and 170kWR at -25 ° C for the freezer rooms .
For added efficiency all leading compressors are fitted with variable speed drives to maintain a steady suction on all temperature lines , and to improve efficiency for warmer days the system was fitted with
The system comprised of 10 Bitzer compressors .
The CO2 system . two parallel compressors . Additionally , a partial heat reclaim BPHE was installed to supplement the hot water required at the facility . The harvesting of the heat rejection from the system to heat water can have major benefits of a system ’ s coefficient of performance ( COP ).
The system comprised of 10 Bitzer compressors – four compressors on the medium temperature side , four on the low temperature side and two parallel compressors handling the flash gas experienced in the system .
In respect of elements which helped or hindered the progress of the project being on schedule , from a rack-manufacturing point of view , was the supply of certain CO 2 components needing to be imported from Europe . Due to the size of the system at that point in time , larger CO 2 components were not readily available locally ; this is however changing with the increase in CO 2 systems being supplied as of today . The waiting on componentry as well as “ finding ” our feet around building our largest system at the time did cause some delays with the manufacturing process , but the assistance received from SCM FRIGO was especially helpful getting us through all of the speed bumps .
COLD LINK AFRICA • May 2024 www . coldlinkafrica . co . za 25