Refrigeration / Supermarkets

The EDEKA empire is divided into seven regional companies, the largest being EDEKA Minden-Hanover. Last year the regional association generated record sales of 7.3 billion euros and invested a good 391 million euros in the extension of its warehousing logistics and the renovation of its retail grocery stores. One of the completed projects is the new E-Center in Berlin-Spandau. This is a highly modern shopping mall with shop-in-shop providers in the heart of the German capital on an area of 3,500 m2. True to its slogan “We love food”, fruit, vegetables, milk products as well as meat and fish are temporarily stored in EDEKA‘s own market freezing and medium temperature cooling storage before they go to further processing or for sale in stores. Deliveries are made daily. The E-Center in Spandau has a total of nine coldstorage rooms with a surface of about 110 m2 as well as two cold-storage preparation rooms for fish and meat, where energy-efficient Küba market SP the latest range of SP high-performance air coolers are installed.

A spacesaving Küba compact DF ceiling air cooler is installed in each of the two preparation rooms. The high standard consists of CO2 as the refrigerant, energysaving EC motors, and the highest corrosion protection, along with hinged drip trays for rapid cleaning. Other specifications include respective design parameters, control equipment, refrigeration connections and the necessary condensation drain installation. “We solicit bids for individual components for every construction project. Apart from the price, quality and sustainability are also decisive. This applies especially for the refrigeration technology, which overall consumes about 50 percent of the total energy consumption of a store. We stipulate the basic power data and specify the parameters. How the contractor equips his refrigeration concept ultimately remains his own decision,” says Steffen Walter, Project Manager of Refrigeration Technology East for EDEKA Minden-Hanover. The refrigerating system engineer and engineer for supply and environmental technology has been designing cooling systems, and his assignments included being responsible for the Ukrainian market. Today he is in charge of the entire refrigeration technology of EDEKA North for the region extending from Hanover to the Polish border.

“Kelvion was not specified for the project, but is the absolute premium brand for air coolers and therefore a preferred choice. However, this was not the decisive factor in our selection, but rather the total concept presented by Carrier as contractor that convinced us this time around,” says Walter, EDEKA‘s in-house refrigeration expert. Along with his colleague Stefan Griepenstroh, Walter is involved in about 100 new buildings and renovation projects. Professional know-how embedded in the company is an absolute necessity today from EDEKA’s point of view, in order to examine and evaluate proposals and projects with the required expertise. The new E-Center in Berlin Spandau has 2500 m2 of exclusive sales floor. The coldstorage rooms are situated in the delivery area and from there can be centrally stocked using the shortest possible logistic pathways. As shop-in-shop provider there is a baking specialist and a fish shop. Both have cold-storage room requirements. “Since fresh dough blanks and fish are sensitive goods just like fresh meat or fruit and vegetables, and have high hygienic requirements, we have specified that the evaporator fins must be coated and the coated casing and all the pipework be made of stainless steel.

Only then we can guarantee the lack of microbial growth after proper cleaning,“ says Walter. Electric defrosting was installed where needed “Where we can do without it, we leave it out for economic reasons,” emphasizes Walter. Energy efficiency is of prime concern in all deliberations. The ratio between strict operating costs and energy costs has shifted in the last ten years. “Energy costs could clearly be reduced, due to energy-saving LED lighting technology, energy optimized ventilation plants and, of course, cooling technology, where energy efficiency could primarily be improved by better control technology,” notes Walter. The entire cooling technology in the E-Center is connected to a multi-compressor refrigeration system. This is also the case for the cold-storage rooms as well as the cooling and fresh-foods counters in the store, and the shop-in-shop businesses (bakery and fish shops). The plant is coupled with a heat recovery system. The waste heat is used in the winter to support shopping center heating as well as for warming process water.