CENTRAL GLYCOL REFRIGERATION SYSTEMS BAKERIES

Our company has been providing centralized industrial cooling systems for over 15-years with numerous installations in bakeries throughout the United States. We pride ourselves on innovation and value and explored what could be done to not only meet product temperature requirements but also address other key elements including diversity, energy efficiency and ease of maintenance. This commitment to excellence has earned us the respect our customers as well as major bakery equipment vendors that know our systems will deliver adequate cooling to their devices and several have even employed our services to troubleshoot problem systems installed by other vendors.

ENGINEERING & INSTALLATION 
Engineering and installation of our glycol refrigeration systems are typically accomplished with packaged air-cooled chillers that require no interior equipment room and even the circulating pumps can be mounted outdoors freeing up valuable floor space. Circulating loops can serve all of the plant process cooling requirements even if design temperatures vary so mixers, ice water, rounder beds, cold hold tanks, etc. can be operated on the same system. 

Circulating loops are typically constructed with steel piping and insulated with closed cell insulation and jacketing as required. Loop configuration is a primary and secondary, which allows variable flow adjustment to meet loop demand requirements with 80% redundancy. Each usage point has an automatic control valve that can be manually positioned in the event of a failure and combined with an automatic balancing valve to maintain precise flow rates. Glycol management system is provided to automatically maintain system charge with a portable spill containment unit. System is completely automated and has the capacity for both in-plant and remote monitoring, alarming, and control.  

ENERGY SAVINGS 
Our systems are simple to operate and typically use 1/3 less energy than other design concepts by incorporating loop designs that maximize the chiller performance. Condensers are oversized providing lower condensing temperatures that compete with water-cooled chillers efficiencies while eliminating water treatment and increased maintenance costs. Other energy saving features include variable frequency drives for flow control and direct digital web based control systems. 

ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFITS 
Environmental impacts now and in the future are a major consideration as we all commit to managing air and water quality and implementing our glycol refrigeration system design concept is a positive step by conserving energy and eliminating several hundred tons of Greenhouse Gas emissions per year.   In addition refrigerant charges are normally less than ½ those of built up systems. 

CONCLUSION 
Considering all the benefits of our glycol refrigeration system it is hard to imagine constructing a bakery without employing our enhanced design features that satisfy the bakery requirements of “Time & Temperature”. New installations in most cases will pay for themselves quickly when compared against a “standard system” and there is also ample opportunity to retrofit existing plants. 

Scott G. Houtz is President of Air Management Technologies, Inc., a mechanical design-build contracting and energy consulting firm located in Lewisburg, PA. E-mail him at scott.houtz@airmanagement.com.