Refrigeration Plant not out in the cold – makes final cut for engineering excellence award
24 October 2007
Palmerston North’s Foodstuffs Distribution Center Refrigeration Plant was announced a category finalist in the 2007 New Zealand Engineering Excellence (NZEE) Awards.
The third New Zealand Engineering Excellence Awards are the premier awards for New Zealand engineering professionals. The awards are presented in two major areas: Individual Awards, that recognise leadership, entrepreneurship, and our young engineers; and Category Awards, that recognise achievement in the various industry areas, together with a Supreme Award for the best of the Category winners.
From its Palmerston North base, the Foodstuffs Wellington Ltd’s Distribution Centre Refrigeration Plant supplies chilled and frozen goods to Foodstuffs retail outlets throughout the southern North Island.
Cowley Refrigeration was engaged by Foodstuffs Wellington to provide a refrigeration solution that would meet their environmental, operational safety, and energy efficiency requirements for their new 11,600 square metre coolstore facility. A cascade Ammonia primary and Fluid secondary system was selected.
Detailed design was undertaken and overseen by Cowley Refrigeration’s engineering team with the assistance of specialist Ammonia Refrigeration Consultancy Mike Odey & Associates and Hawkins Automation for the electrical design and controls.
The new refrigeration plant is the first large freezer store project utilizing secondary refrigerant technology in New Zealand. The plant uses only natural environmentally friendly refrigerants. The secondary refrigerant is a biodegradable organic salt solution which eliminates the risk of an ammonia refrigerant leak within the manned storage areas.
The project was a technical challenge being a large facility with lower than typical storage temperature requirements of -28°C in the ice cream freezer and -25°C in the general freezer. Heat from the refrigeration cycle that would normally be rejected to atmosphere is reclaimed and used to heat the fluid used to defrost the low temperature evaporators and heat glycol which is circulated through approximately five Klms of polyethylene piping installed under the concrete floors of the coolstore to guard against ground frost heave.
Cowley Refrigeration have 50 years experience in the refrigeration industry and continues to expand operations and work with new technologies to make the future happen today.
David Elms, Convenor of the Category Awards judging panel said that the calibre of finalist projects highlighted the contribution that professional engineers make to New Zealand on a social, economic and environmental scale.
“These projects made the finalist cut because they each are outstanding examples of engineering innovation”, says Mr Elms. “This year’s finalists impressed the judges by demonstrating how their projects contributed to the national economy and the reputation of New Zealand engineering and impacted on quality of life in their communities”.
Winners of both individual and category awards will be announced at a black-tie gala dinner at TE PAPA, Wellington on Wednesday, 21 November 2007.
The New Zealand Engineering Excellence Awards are hosted by a consortium of five partners and 10 contributing organisations. The partners are: Centre for Advanced Engineering (CAE); Association of Local Government Engineering New Zealand Incorporated (INGENIUM); Electricity Engineers Association of New Zealand (EEA); Association of Consulting Engineers New Zealand (ACENZ); and the Institution of Professional Engineers New Zealand Inc (IPENZ).
Media enquiries contact:
Verona-Meiana Putaranui, NZEE Awards Media Co-ordinator
Email: media@ipenz.org.nz