Lancashire-based commercial and industrial cooling specialist, Green Cooling, recently designed and installed a complete CO2 refrigeration system, including ‘walk-in’ refrigerated storage for the main kitchens, a centralised high efficiency CO2 refrigeration system, and refrigerated storage for pharmacy use, for the new Alder Hey Children’s Hospital.
Alder Hey will reportedly be one of the most sustainable hospitals ever built – with 60 per cent of its energy generated on site, rain water capture systems, and renewable heating plant. The focus on sustainability extends to the refrigeration – it features the latest CO2 refrigeration technology, designed and installed by Green Cooling for main contractor, Laing O’Rourke.
A high specification food service and pharmacy refrigeration system was required to match both the project’s sustainability demands and meet the demands of the BREEAM environmental assessment. The refrigeration design was relatively complex, and required a complete system-based approach in terms of both cooling delivery and energy transfer via a central CO2 refrigeration plant and two individual CO2 packaged units.
A multi-compressor packaged system was configured to satisfy the main refrigeration load in order to provide both efficiency and contingency benefits within both chilled and freezer outputs. The 10-month project included cold store construction, and the installation of pipework, electrics/controls, refrigeration systems and the packaged refrigeration plant.
