Cold storage provider Magnavale is building the cold store, which will be automated and powered by renewable energy. It will be constructed next to an existing 44,000-pallet cold store on the same site.
The new building will be used for cooling frozen food products. It is designed to reach minus 28 degrees Celsius, so it can be used to store numerous products, including fish and ice cream. The dimensions of the high-bay warehouse are 150 metres long by 100 metres wide and 47 meters high. The high bay cold store interfaces with a 35 metres long expedition bay which has 20 loading docks. It is also supplemented with two floors for services.
Together with the customer, GEA developed a tailored solution for the new cold store. For example, GEA performed in-house computational fluid dynamics simulations to illustrate the air flow and temperature profile within the high bay cold store based on the cold lake principle design. This helped demonstrate the effectiveness of the GEA solution offered compared to a conventional cold store design.
The project was then implemented with a two-stage ammonia refrigeration plant from GEA with optimised circulation rate. The plant comprises of three screw compressors, three reciprocating compressors and three condensers. Furthermore, ten air coolers are installed in the high-bay cold store and 22 in the loading bay area. The GEA screw compressors are employed as the low stage booster compressors, coupled with GEA Grasso V-series reciprocating compressors to take advantage of the reciprocating compressors’ enhanced COP at part load operation. This design maximizes the cooling efficiency under all part and full load operations.
The cold storage facility will go into operation in the fourth quarter of 2024.