Influence of climate conditions on the energy consumption of refrigeration systems in the food processing industry.

Refrigeration is a necessity in the food industry for preservation during production, storage, processing and transportation of temperature sensitive products like meat. Nordic countries (like Norway, Sweden, Finland but also Russia) have climatic conditions which could be used as a source for cooling energy. An energy analyses was performed for a meat processing plant which was specialised in processing of dry-cured ham. The production is characterized by a combined demand of low temperature heating (below 25°C) and refrigeration. The possibility of using the ambient air as a secondary cooling media in today’s production was evaluated. It was found, that the annual energy demand of the plant can be reduced by 20% by installing a heat exchanger between the ambient air and the glycol loop in the current system. The energy saving potential was significantly increased by using the excess energy of the refrigeration cycle for heating demand.