Running the Cold Plant Well

The refrigeration plant is the biggest electrical machine in the factory, and unlike the cookers it has no recipe card: how it runs is decided by setpoints, timers and habits that were configured at commissioning and have often never been questioned since. The chilling and freezing lesson showed why low-temperature kilowatt-hours are the most expensive on site; this lesson is about earning them back, through four operating levers, none of them exotic: pressures, defrost, doors and load.