The main running cost of any cold store is energy, typically between 20% and 30% of total running costs, depending largely on the age of refrigeration and lighting equipment. Cold stores are also often the most costly to build and will be more affected by standards and legislation, so it is important to consider internal  handling equipment  because the wrong sort can mean a larger store than necessary. The equipment in question usually means forklift trucks and racking/shelving. Fortunately, there is plenty of advice and some Government-backed financial incentives to make dramatic cuts in the energy bills.

chazGiven that the level of insulation and degree of cooling needed for frozen goods will be much more demanding and costly than for chilled storage, both the building fabric and design need to ensure that the energy consumed is not allowed to leak through poor insulation or, worse still, through unsuitable doors. Lighting costs always warrant attention. Even in ambient stores lighting can account for up to 65% of a warehouse’s energy costs. Recent advances in lighting technology deliver impressive cost cuts as well as improved safety and working conditions. Examples include motion-activated lighting that only comes on when required, delivering energy savings of up to 50%. A switch to T5 fluorescent luminaires should be considered as these cost far less to run than SONS and metal halide lights. LED lights do not generate heat so less cooling is required, giving more energy savings.

Even if a warehouse has the most appropriate lighting and insulation investments, significant savings can still be made without the need for any outlay. An example is the use of a business utility broker like Utility Watch. One cold store operator, D&S Storage, with a 96,000 ft2 freezer, used Utility Watch to take their electricity bills to several potential providers and by using their buying power they were able to make sure D&S Storage got the best price available with a revised tariff. The result was an annual saving of £84,000.

Government help on hand is the Carbon Trust. Their team will gladly do free energy audit checks and offer a four-year, interest-free loan of up to £500,000 for equipment on their Energy Technology List. This would cover lighting, heating and refrigeration equipment, among others. There is also the Enhanced Capital Allowance schemes. These provide a tax incentive that allows 100% first-year capital allowance on investment in energy-saving equipment against taxable profits of the period of investment.

When planning a new cold store one eye must be kept on the future, owing to changing trends in food demand and shopping channels, while the other eye must carefully consider the types of handling equipment and racking. The most commonly used racking in cold stores are drive-in and mobile. These achieve the benefit of highly dense forms of storage and so keep down the size of a costly cold store. Both, however, have their drawbacks. Drive-in is notoriously accident prone and prevents 100% instant stock access, while mobile racking, although allowing 100% stock accessibility, is slow to access as only one aisle at a time can be opened. Given that changing food and shopping trends are more likely to see more order picking within cold stores rather than traditional, full pallet load handling only, then APR would be a more suitable racking choice.

Until recently, the truck of choice in cold stores was the reach truck, with or without a heated cab, but they need at least 2.6 mt wide aisles, which makes the initial building costs higher than need be. A better truck choice would be the articulated type, now available with heated cabs, from Flexi Narrow Aisle, Translift Bendi and Aisle Master because they need only 1.6 mt wide aisles, and so save considerably more space.

Comments are closed.