THE CREATION of one of Europe's greenest and most ambitious refrigeration systems is underway at an Aberdeenshire family farm.
Mackie's of Scotland is heralding the arrival of the first parts of its £4.5 million project that will increase and improve its ice cream production facility and reduce its carbon footprint - as it bids to become the greenest company in Britain.
The state-of-the-art project is being brought to life after Mackie's secured £2.05 million from the Scottish Government's Low Carbon Infrastructure Transition Programme.
The Scottish Government support, part-funded by the 2014-2020 European Regional Development Fund programme, will be matched by a significant investment of more than £2.5 million by Mackie's. It is targeting ambitious CO2 savings of up to 80% and energy costs of 70-80%.
With just two similar systems across the UK, once it is operational later this year, it will be the first of its kind in Scotland.
Mac Mackie, Managing Director with Mackie's, said: "This freezer can be the final piece in the jigsaw to our farm becoming entirely self-sufficient in renewable energy.
"With our solar farm, wind turbines and existing biomass system powering 70% of our annual energy needs, the next stage was to look at ways of slashing our energy requirements.
"We first set out on the journey towards this refrigeration back in 2018 - and are grateful that the support from the Scottish Government and the European Regional Development Fund will enable us to make this happen. It should create an exemplar low-carbon refrigeration plant for Scotland."
Unlike some systems that use environmentally damaging HCFC gases, Mackie's new system will run on ammonia, powered by hot-water from a large biomass boiler that, through an absorbtion chiller, will cool to -15C with minimal electrical input. Where necessary, conventional refrigeration compressors will reduce the temperature further to -30C .
The system will provide the temperatures needed at all stages of the production of Mackie's famous ice cream as well as delivering carbon and electricity savings.
The resultant quicker and colder way to freeze ice cream will bring further benefits to the business, improving the quality of the ice cream while helping it to increase production to meet its growing demand.
Mac added: "This is a truly exciting development for us. Being able to produce more, higher quality ice cream is just another bonus resulting from our investment in further green technology."
Mackie's already produces more than 10 million litres of ice cream every year. Its renewable energy is derived from four wind turbines that produce 8500 MWh of electricity each year and its 7000 panel solar farm, once the largest in Scotland.
Background
What makes the new system low carbon?
The entire new system will include replacment refrigeration plant, an absorption chiller, two biomass boilers, two new ice cream freezers, an ice machine and a spiral freezer.
The new system will use ammonia (in all equipment other than the spiral freezer) and carbon dioxide (spiral freezer only) as the refrigerant gases and use biomass boilers as the principal energy source.
There are three principal reasons why the new system has a lower carbon footprint than the existing one:
Firstly, in addition to providing energy for the refrigeration plant, the biomass boilers will also provide heat for the mix tanks, pasteurisation and cleaning processes within the factory, replacing the existing oil boiler. As biomass fuel has a much lower carbon footprint than fuel oil, this will be a large carbon saving for the new system.
Secondly, the existing system uses electricity as the energy source for the refrigeration process. The new system uses heat from the biomass boilers as the energy source for the refrigeration processes down to -15 °C. Conventional compressors are only needed for the extra step down to -30 °C. Thus, the electricity costs of the new system will be around a quarter of that of the existing system, another significant carbon saving.
Finally, the current system uses refrigerant gases with a global warming potential almost 4000 times that of carbon dioxide. The new system will use mainly ammonia and some carbon dioxide as the refrigerant gases. Ammonia and carbon dioxide have a global warming potential of 0 and 1, respectively, a significant reduction.
Ammonia was first used as a refrigerant in the 1850's in France and remained a popular refrigerant for decades until synthetic HCFC refrigerant gases became dominant. However, in recent years, there has been a resurgence in interest in ammonia, alone or in cascade systems with other gases such as carbon dioxide, as the ozone depleting and global warming potential of HCFC's has been recognised and reflected in industry regulation.
Overall, during normal operation, the carbon footprint of the new refrigeration system is expected to be around to be around 20% of that of the existing system.
Issued on behalf of Mackie's of Scotland by www.holyroodpr.co.uk.
Further information from Toni Dowling, on 0131 561 2244 or toni@holyroodpr.co.uk
