Energy saving and carbon emission reduction potential for cold store with new dynamic linkage control strategy

Abstract

Management optimization is economical and effective to reduce energy consumption and carbon emission for cold stores in service, needing more appropriate control strategy. The state of different components of refrigeration system affects each other, which indicates control strategies based on matching characteristics are essential. This study compared the operating data before and after control upgrade for an actual cold store that had the ability to adjust capacity stage. To better evaluate the input-output ability of air coolers, a new parameter, cooling efficiency, was calculated to represent their refrigeration per power consumption. New control strategy based on the matching operation of compressors and air coolers was put forward as dynamic linkage control strategy (DICS) with real-time flow rate and refrigeration capacity calculation to improve system efficiency. Through system control optimization, the coefficient of performance (COP) of the refrigeration system was increased by 29%, and the cooling efficiency of the air coolers (CEAC) was increased by 37%. The average power consumption decreased by 21.15%, and carbon emission was reduced by 320.840 tonnes at a decreasing rate of 19.95% per year for the whole cold store.