Preliminary study on specific energy consumption of cold storage room in Thailand's cold chain

Abstract

The objective of this study was to determine the suitable specific energy consumption (SEC) of cold storage rooms for chilled (0–10 °C) and frozen (≤-18 °C) cold stores in Thailand. A survey of refrigerated warehouses in Thailand was conducted to determine the energy consumption under actual operating conditions. The survey included 161 cold storage rooms (48 chilled cold stores and 113 frozen cold stores) over a range of store volumes between 20 and 108,220 m3. The parameters used for the analysis were temperature of the store, volume of the store and energy usage per year. The SEC was determined from the relationship between the annual energy consumption and store volume following European Standard EN 16212:2012. It was found that the SEC decreased with increasing volume of the warehouse in a power function form. They varied between 37 and 481 kWh/m3-year for chilled cold stores, and between 46 and 212 kWh/m3-year for frozen cold stores. According to the regression equation, the suitable SECs for each cold store type in Thailand were 1,630.3 × (store volume)−0.3812 and 1,560.0 × (store volume)−0.2917 kWh/m3-year for chilled and frozen cold stores, respectively. The equation form was consistent with results from other studies.