Cooled customer: PrimePac reduces energy consumption with ICS technology

ICS Cool Energy has brought increased efficiency savings to PrimePac, a plastic packaging manufacturer based in Antrim, Northern Ireland, that needed to boost cooling capacity by a quarter due to increased demand.

With rising demand for its consumable packaging lines, which it supplies to major British retailers, PrimePac has recently brought in round-the-clock production, placing strain on its existing cooling system.

In order to provide efficient cooling for its production processes, ICS Cool Energy provided a free cooling system for use in conjunction with its existing chiller.

Eddie Rath, PrimePac’s Managing Director, said: “We knew we needed to replace some ageing equipment as part of our production investment and it made sense to get ICS Cool Energy in to recommend the best solution. We’ve had a good working relationship with them for about 25 years and trust their expertise.

“The recommendation was a free cooling option as it offers us what we need and although it’s difficult to get a precise handle on energy savings and costs, annual savings of £20,000 a year is realistic.”

The free cooling system used by PrimePac is an ‘A’ rated Aptus model. This starts operating when the ambient temperature reaches 12°C or lower and is especially efficient in cooler climates.

Richard Metcalfe, Sales Director at ICS Cool Energy, said: “A chiller can be one of the most energy-intensive pieces of equipment to run. However, by integrating free cooling into a chiller system, you can negate a certain percentage of the energy consumed by the chiller.

“In short, free cooling uses ambient air to reduce the energy consumed by a cooling circuit, and therefore reduces the electrical power load of that system. Given the cooling-heavy nature of the plastics industry as a whole, if a factory can use the ambient temperature outside the premises to help facilitate cooling, then it makes perfect sense to do so.”

According to Metcalfe, in the first full year of operation at PrimePac, the free cooling system has operated for over 4,600 hours, representing 55 per cent of the total cooling system’s working hours. “As well as energy savings, there’s a reduction in compressor operating hours which helps to prolong the life of the chiller,” he concluded.