PERFORMANCE SIMULATION OF COLD STORAGE USING ENERGYPLUS

The present work deals with the study of cold storage refrigeration plant and simulation of refrigeration system to evaluate the cooling load and annual energy consumption for cold storage applications. The specific temperature and humidity range is required for properly storing any particular food and thus facilitates its preservation for a longer duration of time. The present cold storage capacity in India is grossly inadequate and with a positive future outlook for the agro, food processing, retail and pharmaceutical industry there is urgent need to scale up and develop integrated cold chain facilities across the country. In this view, a simple methodology is presented to obtain the cooling load and energy consumption for a cold storage using an energy simulation tool “EnergyPlus”. Also the attempt has been made to minimize energy consumption of cold store by replacing the Expanded Polystyrene (EPS) with Poly-urethane Foam (PUF) insulation. The methodology has been validated against the actual data obtained from Penguin cold storage situated in Pune, India. It is found from the simulation results that the average reduction of cooling load for summer design day is 9.78 % while for winter design day it is 9.26 %, when 150 mm thick insulation of EPS is replaced by 100 mm PUF insulation. Due to this replacement the annual cooling energy is saved by Rs. 63875 with pay-back period of 6.8 years.