Refrigeration units
Designed and built by us, with compressors working as a team: if one stops, the others keep the store at temperature.
IMP-AB-01 · Flagship project
Aboca S.p.A.
A cold store 13 metres high.
Refrigeration and air handling to store medicinal plants at constant temperature and humidity, from floor to ceiling.
700m² cold store
13metres high
9100m³ volume
4 °Ctemperature
65%relative humidity
The challenge
Warm air rises. Plants don’t.
In a space 13 metres high the air stratifies: colder at the bottom, warmer and drier at the top. Medicinal plants can’t have that: they must be kept at 4 °C and 65% humidity on every shelf, from the lowest to the highest.
It needed a system that cools, controls humidity and spreads the air evenly through the whole volume, without ever stopping.
The solution
Five systems, one control
Air handling
Air handling units with variable-speed plug fans: they cool, dehumidify or humidify as needed.
Textile ducts
Air flows out of thousands of micro-holes along the fabric ducts: it spreads through the whole store with no draughts on the products.
Heat recovery
The heat removed from the store isn’t wasted: it is recovered and transferred to the heating and plumbing system of the plant’s Unit 10 block.
Control and HMI
PLCs and touch screens with the plant overview: temperatures, humidity, alarms and history always under control, remotely too.
CFD simulation · P&ID
Before building it, we let it breathe on the computer
With fluid dynamics simulation we saw how the air moves in the store and sized the ducts so it reaches every point at the same speed and temperature. Then the P&ID fixed every component: refrigeration units, AHUs, heat recovery and controls.
The site
From the roof to the cold store
Video
See the system
Videos load from YouTube only when you press play.
After handover
We look after it every year
Scheduled maintenance and contractual site visits, leak checks and refrigerant management, continuous supervision of the system.