Case Study: South African fruit packing company implements CaaS
By outsourcing its cooling system, Afrupro could upgrade its unreliable, aging refrigeration system without any capital costs, improving efficiencies and lowering energy consumption by 20 per cent.
The need: Afrupro, a South African fruit packing company, was experiencing consistent problems with its existing industrial ammonia plant. The cold rooms were operating above required temperature specifications and the glycol tanks were leaking. This resulted in rising maintenance and electricity costs compounded by expensive product losses. Their upfront request was to replace the problematic plant with a new higher-GWP R407F multiplex system due to the poor temperature stability.
The solution: Following a thorough evaluation, Energy Partners Refrigeration proposed an outsourced cooling solution (financed, owned and optimised by Energy Partners). This involved an upgraded ammonia plant to provide better, more reliable cost-efficient cooling. The upgrade involved the installation of a new liquid receiver (including valves and instrumentation) and new stainless-steel glycol tanks. Existing mechanical controls were replaced with a new computerised control system with remote monitoring capabilities and a full re-commissioning process commenced. This was all financed through a Cooling as a Service (CaaS) agreement, with no upfront cost to the client.
Benefits:
- CaaS contract structure saved Afrupro R3.7m (USD200,000) in additional capital expenditure.
- Total project CO2 emissions avoidance of 425 tons annually or 4,250 tons over the contract period.
- Cold rooms running efficiently with 20 per cent lower energy cost.
- Elimination of unnecessary maintenance costs.
- Stabilised temperature management and elimination of product losses or re-cooling costs. • Guaranteed uptime with 24-hour monitoring.
- Improved business focus: Afrupro allowed to focus on packing and shipping fruit while EP guarantees the cooling.
- Ability to plan for the cost of the cooling required.