Heating Nestle chocolate factory
6 Dec 2010
Halifax, UK – An energy saving heating and cooling system installed at one of Nestle’s UK chocolate factories has earned an industry award for its designer, Star Refrigeration.
Star’s ammonia heat pump plant at Nestle’s confectionery production facility in Halifax, West Yorkshire, has won an RAC Cooling Industry Award as the industrial and commercial project of the year.
The Star Neatpump uses technology to simultaneously deliver chilled glycol and hot water at 60 degrees C using waste heat. Featuring a single stage screw compressor, it can deliver hot water far more efficiently than a traditional gas fired boiler system.
The dual-purpose plant enables a number of cooling and heating applications to take place across the Nestle site. These include process heating and process cooling, as well as building heating.
Nestle had engaged Star to find a solution that would reduce total energy demand at the Halifax site, using only natural refrigerants in all new plant to reduce the environmental impact of its manufacturing operation.
“As a dual purpose cooling and heating system, Neatpump has cut process utility costs at the Halifax site by over £200k per annum. In addition, over 500,000kg of CO2 emissions per year have been avoided,” said Star’s director of innovation Dave Pearson.
In addition, he said, the plant is designed to provide over 20 years service without the costly maintenance work associated with other compressor types.
“This has to be a wake up call to the finance directors of any business that utilises cooling and heating,” added Pearson.
According to Star, unlike many first generation heat pump systems, the pump does not require any synthetic “global warming” gases, particularly HFCs. It operates using ammonia, a naturally occurring refrigerant that has zero ozone depletion potential.
The Neatpump is a renewable energy heat pump that extracts heat from seawater, air or any industrial waste stream, such as air conditioning or large scale cooling processes. This waste heat is captured, compressed, boosted and recycled to provide hot water at up to 90 degrees C.
The Vilter single screw compressor is at the heart of Neatpump. The compressor design has balanced pressure across the central motor, to help ensure long life, high reliability and low maintenance.
Available with capacities ranging from 300kW to 8000kW, the system can be designed to cool both water and secondary fluids including glycol. It is, therefore, suitable for applications including process cooling and heating, AC with heating, steam raising and district cooling, heating and desalination.
