VerDi: replacement R22 installation

A decision for natural cooling methods wasn't advantageous to VerDi, however. The eight cold stores and the central working space are cooled through a direct expansion system based on synthetic refrigerant R134a.

Best big picture

In order to realize an installation that would be as environmentally friendly as possible, a broader view was taken than just choosing the refrigerant. That's why the ventilation in the building was also improved, and hall cooling was added. To decrease the environmental impact, VerDi also decided not to demolish the old cold stores, but to revitalize them. "With this bigger picture, we achieve the most efficiency," Mark Verweij of VerDi Import explains. "And with the biggest improvement in efficiency, we also achieve the biggest environmental gains."

Low energy and maintenance costs

By applying various energy-efficient components and the special Nijssen Power Saving System, the installation has very low energy and maintenance costs. In the design, the focus was on efficiency in part load situations, because the installation will rarely run at full capacity. With the implementation of hall cooling, the temperature difference with the cold stores has been brought down. That means the new installation has to run a lot less. That did cause an unexpected disadvantage at first, Mark Verweij says with a grin: "The installation runs so efficiently that it reported an error just after completion, because it hadn't turned on all night. Great news of course, except I was the one who had to get out of bed for nothing!"

Better control of storability

In the cold stores, the option to heat was added. Mark Verweij explains: "That way we can adjust the relative humidity, and thus activate or slow down the assimilation processes in the products. That improves the storability of the products." With the Nijssen Coolmaster control programme, the conditions can be set for each individual cold store. Depending on the product, the temperature on arrival and the desired storage time, the ideal storage conditions are set. Displays at the cold stores continuously show the temperature and humidity clearly to employees as well as visitors.

Pragmatic solutions

To disturb operations as little as possible, the installation was completed in stages. "In close consultation at the workplace, pragmatic solutions were constantly being looked at. That was one example of the great cooperation. After completion, Nijssen organized a meeting in which they taught our entire team about the theory behind storability and cooling. We appreciated that very much."Mark Verweij is happy about the whole process and about the result: "When you value reliability as highly as company, you of course select your suppliers and materials accordingly. We asked various suppliers for a quotation. We had the best 'click' with Nijssen."

Completion: February 2015

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