GREEN MATTERS
Introducing TICR I
Miriam Rodway, chief executive of the Institute of Refrigeration reveals exactly what the TICR project is and why it’s important.
Good
management does not have to be about investing in expensive new or green innovative technologies but simply managing what is already in place more eff ectively.
n this the bicentenary of the birth of Lord Kevin, one of the great scientist’s founding principles that “to measure is to know - if you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it”
remains important and relevant even today. Those working in the refrigeration, air conditioning and heat pump industry are under increasing pressure to deliver low carbon, reliable refrigeration solutions for end users who need to achieve business aims whilst meeting stringent corporate social responsibility goals and managing increased overheads. Recognising this dilemma and the increasingly important role of cooling for UK economic activity the Government Department for Energy Security and Net Zero set up the TICR project last year. TICR stands for Transport, Industrial and Commercial
Refrigeration and it is designed to help users of cooling to move towards their net zero targets. The project is being carried out by a team of experts led by London South Bank University. Its fi rst step is to research just how much energy and direct emissions are related to six key cooling sectors – transport refrigeration, chemicals and pharmaceutical manufacturing, industrial food manufacturing, cold stores/ supermarkets, and datacentres. The second step will be to produce guidance as End User Toolkits or pathways for diff erent operators in the industry - owners, designers and contractors and the third step is to submit recommendations to policy makers for how they can support industry to meet net zero.
For some system owners improving the effi ciency of their
refrigeration equipment appears to be much lower down their list of priorities than just keeping the process or function operating. The work of the project so far based on site investigations and data analysis is that reliability is most usually
the highest (or in some cases the only) priority and then, is the equipment achieving the cooling required ie holding temperature and not requiring regular service for breakdown. Whilst this may be all that they expect from the system, the problem that such end users will fi nd is that, they have a substantial information gap about the best way to operate, to update or to adjust their processes. If they don’t have systems in place to give them access to current operational data and don’t know enough about how that operation has changed over time, how can they hope to be sure it is working well, or to improve its reliability and effi ciency? Eff ective management is essential to extend the useful life or equipment and to understanding when it is time for it to be replaced (before experiencing a major failure being one factor). Good management does not have to be about investing in expensive new or green innovative technologies but simply managing what is already in place more eff ectively. Refrigeration engineers and designers know this already. A regime of planned preventative maintenance is essential, as is reviewing operating data and regular recommissioning to ensure the system installed years ago is still operating appropriate to current cooling needs. The TICR project has been testing these principles against
12 June 2024 •
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