GEA Grenco B.V. has announced that Rederij Parlevliet en van der Plas has assigned the company to build environmental friendly refrigeration and freezing installations aboard the fish trawler Dirk Diederik KW 172. The delivery of the new refrigeration plant is planned to take place at the end of 2009.
The order is one of the biggest in GEA Grenco’s history and has a value of several million euros. The assignment comprises months of work for the specialised marine department of GEA Grenco B.V.
Dirk Diederik has been operating for many years and is due some major replacements.
The majority of ships of this age were originally equipped with a refrigeration plant making use of the refrigerant R22. This refrigerant has some very good thermal properties, but it contains ozone depletion components.
In addition to this, R22 also has a substantial global warming potential and is therefore to be phased out according the Montreal protocol - as of 2000 it is prohibited to build new systems with R22 and from 2010 the use of 'virgin' R22 for topping up existing systems is also prohibited. In 2015 R22 is to be completely phased out.
Dirk Diderik's new refrigeration plant will use ammonia and CO2 - both of which are natural refrigerants.
GEA Grenco has invested heavily in developing refrigeration systems suited to operate with natural refrigerants such as ammonia and CO2.
These refrigerants have no negative impact on the environment and they enable energy efficient operation of the refrigeration plant.
GEA Grenco says that it was the first company to install a screw compressor based ammonia/CO2 refrigeration plant for the marine industry.
Including the new plant for Dirk Diderik, GEA Grenco has installed in total seven ammonia/CO2 cascade systems for large fishing vessels.
The installation will have a GEA Grenco control system based on the latest development in marine computer and PLC technology. Software including user friendly graphical interface is developed and supported by the control department of GEA Grenco.
The use of an ammonia/CO2 cascade system makes it possible to utilise the low temperature efficiency of CO2 and the energy efficient use of ammonia on the high temperature side. An important issue is also that the amount of ammonia will be substantially reduced with solution. In fact, ammonia will only be present in a designated gas-tight area of the machine room. In the processing area only the non-toxic and non-flammable CO2 will be used.
This ship will also be equipped with complete new vertical plate freezers.
These freezers are able to utilise the good heat transfer of CO2. For this reason, and due to the possibility to evaporate the CO2 at a temperature of -50°C, capacity is increased with 25% compared to other conventional systems.
GEA Grenco says that the working relationship between both parties has already existed for decades. GEA Grenco has built virtually all refrigeration and freezing installations for Parlevliet en van der Plas' ships.
The company also reports that its order intake remains high, despite the current financial crisis.
