Goodyear, Arizona
CoolSys Energy Design (CED) made a noteworthy contribution to the rapidly growing field of sustainable buildings and natural refrigeration with its comprehensive engineering services—including MEPR, building controls and fire alarm—for one of the largest industrial kitchens and refrigerated fulfillment centers in North America.
The project encompassed a new, 325,000-square-foot, first-of-its-kind facility for processing, cooking, freezing and shipping high-quality meal kits. Located in Goodyear, Arizona, the facility is also notable for its massive CO2 refrigeration system.
The project was a highly complex undertaking, dwarfing the engineering design requirements for most industrial buildings. About half of the square footage consisted of refrigerated storage space and the other half a sophisticated food preparation and cooking area, requiring the engineering design of not only major appliances, equipment and fixtures but also hundreds of interconnected supply sources, including HVAC, electrical, water and plumbing.
The food preparation aspect of the project presented its own engineering challenges. With raw proteins and other ingredients coming into one section of the facility and cooked foods the product of other sections, food safety issues like cross-contamination were a major concern in the design of the rooms.
Going Sub-Zero in the Desert
One of the greatest challenges CoolSys faced in both the design and implementation of the facility was its location.
Until recently, it was considered folly to attempt a transcritical CO2 refrigeration system capable of reaching -10 ̊ F—and particularly one the size of this project—in the unhospitable climate of the Arizona desert, where summertime temperatures can reach 120 ̊ or more.
Creating an energy-efficient transcritical CO2 system in such a hot climate was widely believed to be impossible. Those assumptions, however, have been proven wrong.
In contrast to the extreme summer heat, winter temperatures in the Arizona desert can drop to near freezing, requiring equipment that can handle outside temperature variations of 80 ̊ or more.
CED assembled a multidisciplinary team of its most senior MEPR engineers and designers to lay the groundwork for later construction and installation. The team included lead engineers in each discipline, as well as a large group of engineers and designers working under the supervision of the leads.
CED engineers designed pressure sensors, exhaust fans, and supply fans to balance airflow among the rooms while compensating for air-conditioning, blowers, and swinging doors. This ensures that air always flows from cooked to raw throughout the industrial kitchen to avoid contamination via air flow.
To keep 18 rooms comprising approximately 160,000 square feet of refrigerated space in the massive facility at the required temperatures, CoolSys procured and installed four transcritical CO2 rack systems, totaling over 16,000 MBH of compressor capacity, in the building’s machine room.
Each of the four racks utilizes a rooftop adiabatic gas cooler to reject heat. In total, the system supplies refrigeration for 78 evaporator coils in the refrigerated sections of the building. CoolSys recommended adiabatic gas coolers for this project to enable efficient refrigeration performance in the desert. Adiabatic systems also use much less water—a precious resource in the harsh Arizona climate—than more conventional evaporative condensers.
The team also installed two adiabatic fluid coolers on the roof that provided condenser water to condensing units for eight blast chillers in the food preparation area of the facility. Inside the building, CoolSys installed 78 evaporator coils that supply refrigeration for about half of the 325,000-square-foot facility.
In addition to the rooftop systems and evaporator coils, CoolSys installed dedicated, packaged CO2 condensing units and associated piping for two food processing spiral chillers, as well as stainless steel piping, a building control system—including complete refrigeration system energy management—and leak detection in each refrigerated space.
Licensed in all 50 states, CoolSys Energy Design possesses the expertise and experience to handle all building system engineering design tasks, conveniently offering a full range of engineering specialties under one roof.
Customizable turnkey services encompass facility engineering, design, consulting, project management, and commissioning for projects of all sizes, including massive, single-site facilities like the recent project in Arizona to coordinate multistate, multisite services.
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