An energy saving heating and cooling system installed at one of Nestle’s UK chocolate factories has scooped a major industry award for its designer, Star Refrigeration.

Star’s innovative ammonia heat pump plant at Nestle’s confectionary production facility in Halifax, West Yorkshire, has won a prestigious RAC Cooling Industry Award.  The Nestle Halifax installation took the Industrial and Commercial Project of the Year title at the 2010 awards ceremony.

Star’s Neatpump impressed the judges by demonstrating significant environmental advantages over conventional systems.  Neatpump uses groundbreaking technology to simultaneously deliver chilled glycol and hot water at 60⁰C using waste heat.  Featuring a single stage screw compressor, Neatpump delivers hot water far more efficiently than a traditional gas fired boiler system.

The dual-purpose plant enables a number of cooling and heating applications to take place across the Nestle site.  These include process heating and process cooling, as well as building heating.

As part of Nestle’s continued drive to cut carbon emissions, Star was challenged to find a solution that would reduce total energy demand at the Halifax site.  Nestle also insisted on the use of natural refrigerants in all new plant to reduce the environmental impact of its manufacturing operation.

Star’s Director of Innovation Dave Pearson says: “As a dual purpose cooling and heating system, Neatpump has cut process utility costs at the Halifax site by over £200k per annum.  In addition, over 500,000kg of CO2 emissions per year have been avoided.  This has to be a wake up call to the Finance Directors of any business that utilises cooling and heating.  Nestle simply had the vision to aim higher”.

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