Maintaining specific temperatures to guarantee product consistency or desired environment to test products’ resistance to extreme ambient temperatures have been the challenges presented to ICS Cool Energy, an international market leader specialising in complete temperature control solutions for manufacturing process and facilities applications. The projects executed at two manufacturing sites in North and East of England represent completely different applications – testing of vehicle components and beverage production – encompassing the different needs and efficient ways to create temperature-controlled areas in process applications.
“Providing modular and containerised freestanding units or a cooling system turning existing space into a temperature-controlled room, are the two most efficient ways to ensure the desired, precise-temperature environment in various process and manufacturing applications,” said Andrew Delday- Roberts, UK Sales Manager-Hire ICS Cool Energy. “Whether it is cold climate vehicle testing or ensuring all-year-long hot temperature storage in food manufacturing, the two projects in England were made possible thanks to engineering expertise and a set of solutions that help manufacturers to ensure highest quality of their products.”
Rigorous endurance testing at -30°C to ensure highest quality of vehicle components
Automotive Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) demand the highest quality components throughout the supply chain. The vital element of the vehicle parts manufacturing process at the North England’s plant is the rigorous testing to ensure they can withstand extreme changes in temperature and meet the strict industry and legal requirements.
The manufacturer asked ICS Cool Energy to deliver a solution capable of creating an indoor environment with precise temperature set-points reaching as low as -30°C. Following a site survey and considering various options, the local ICS Cool Energy engineering team proposed a long-term hire of a VLT 60 cold unit. The VLT 60 is capable of delivering temperatures between -10°C and
-40°C and comes in a 10-foot ISO container facilitating the delivery and installation on site.
This allowed the customer to create a cold testing chamber enabling repeatable tests in a controlled environment and confirming that the vehicle parts live up to the expectations and safety standards.
Containerised hot store to keep the beverage ingredients at +40°C all year round
Producing cider, ready-to drink products, and fruit wines in their plant in Eastern England, the manufacturer approached ICS Cool Energy asking for a plus-ambient storage solution needed to maintain their beverage ingredients in a constantly liquified state. To avoid the product becoming solidified and unusable for the production process, the storage must maintain a constant +40°C temperature all year round.
ICS Cool Energy was able to fulfil the customer’s requirements customizing a 20-foot refrigerated container unit as part of their Cold Store hire solutions. Originally designed for global – often in high ambient temperatures – marine transport of temperature sensitive perishables, the ICS Cold Store solution provides accurate and stable storage temperatures. At the plant, the unit’s temperature was set +40°C to protect the temperature sensitive ingredient.
The portable Cold Store containers are designed to be put on and off ships and give the customer the flexibility to move it around with the lift and shift if required. If needed they can store temperature sensitive perishables and pharmaceuticals at temperature set-points between -70° Celsius to + 40° Celsius.
“ICS Cool Energy brings decades of experience in offering customers with the right cold and hot storage rental solutions, providing both containerised cold stores and applying modular chiller/fan coil packages,” said Andrew Delday Roberts. “We can help manufacturers deal with sudden emergencies like equipment breakdown and planned or longer term needs for additional cooling. We can also turn existing spaces into cold stores and work with any businesses to deal with short-term peaks in demand or long-term requirements.”
