FDBusiness.com

The majority of food manufacturers are literally throwing away thousands of pounds every year in invisible energy, according to Star Refrigeration. The heating and cooling specialist claims that most food firms with refrigeration or air conditioning plants could be saving up to 40% on their annual energy bills. Star is launching a free online assessment through its website www.star-ref.co.uk to help food processors identify where significant cost savings could be achieved by recycling ‘invisible’ heat energy.

Don't Waste Your Waste – Star is urging food firms to take the heat out of refrigeration.

Star Refrigeration’s director of sales – Food Market, James Ward says: “Heat energy is invisible, so understandably it’s out of sight, out of mind for most businesses. Our key message is that when it comes to heating and cooling; ‘don’t waste your waste’. In most cases investing in heat recovery will significantly reduce energy consumption, cut costs and decrease carbon emissions.”

He adds: “Cooling systems extract heat from food and buildings then reject the heat into the atmosphere as waste. Food firms can now recover, boost and recycle this waste energy and enjoy massive long term financial benefits, thanks to the latest industrial heat pump technology.”

An online questionnaire on the Star website (www.star-ref.co.uk) examines the operating temperatures of heating and cooling systems within a food processing facility. This simple data provided is then analysed alongside current utility tariffs to identify potential heat pump applications and energy cost savings.

Star estimates that based on typical gas and electricity utility rates, industrial heat pumps offer a financial return on the original investment within five years. This payback time is significantly reduced if heat pumps are incorporated into new installations from the start.

James Ward says: “We believe there is a huge opportunity for heat recovery in the food manufacturing industry. Many facilities undertake cooling processes and also require large amounts of water to be heated, such as for equipment wash down.”

A world leader in cooling and heating system innovation, Star has developed a range of heat recovery solutions for small and large scale food processing applications. As an environmentally conscious supplier, Star’s heat pumps typically use natural refrigerants, such as ammonia and carbon dioxide (CO2) for efficient high-grade heat generation.

Recent developments such as Star’s Neatpump enable customers to harness the waste energy from cooling processes and convert it into heat for use within their business. Neatpump uses a low charge of natural ammonia refrigerant to simultaneously deliver chilled glycol for cooling processes and hot water at up to 900C utilising the waste heat.

In addition to the environmental benefits and reduced carbon footprint, Neatpump generates heat at 40% less cost than a gas burning boiler system. Neatpump’s advanced compressor technology and ultra low maintenance design ensures over 20 years of environmentally conscious service.

Another Star system, Envitherm, uses a supercritical CO2 heat pump to deliver chilled water at 6°C, whilst heating water to over 60°C.  Envitherm operates with natural CO2 refrigerant and delivers ‘free’ hot water with zero carbon emissions.

For more information, phone Star Refrigeration on 0141 638 7916, email star@star-ref.co.uk or visit www.star-ref.co.uk.