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View Subscription Details: Letter ( 10/27/2015 ) - Plain Text Format How good are they?

When a company is focused on energy efficiency of refrigeration plants, sooner or later it should evaluate performance of these plants. How good are they? What can be done to continue efficiency improvement of our refrigeration plants?
In this case a company will need help from an outside expert. Usually, several initial steps of energy saving process are not complicated and are not expensive. However, the very next step is harder and more expensive. That is why every company should look for outside help in advanced stages of energy saving process. This approach will help your company to maximize energy efficiency of your refrigeration plants and avoid unnecessary investments.
Recently, I visited one facility where management decided to do some investment to improve energy efficiency of their refrigeration plant. They heard that floating condensing pressure saves energy. $80,000 were invested in a new sophisticated PLC. However, very limited energy savings were achieved. Why?
This refrigeration plant had undersized evaporative condensers. During periods of warm weather these condensers operated at full capacity, but optimum condensing pressure was not achieved because condensers were undersized. Condensing pressure was not floating. During periods of cool weather this plant operated at minimum allowable condensing pressure and there was no floating as well. These are the reasons that investment in sophisticated PLC has given that company very limited energy savings. This plant could save much more energy by investing the same $80,000 in additional evaporative condenser.
This fall I decided to help companies evaluate performance of their refrigeration plants and determine direction of potential energy saving investments. Anybody interested in this issue, please contact me for additional information.