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Home > Energy Efficiency Tips & Tools > Commercial Buildings > Machines, Equipment and Motors
Machines, Equipment and Motors
Make food preparation as energy efficient as possible
Refrigeration and freezing
Operation and maintenance
| Refrigeration units and freezers can waste energy in many ways: |
- Controls are often set lower than necessary
- Doors don't close completely
- Merchandise is placed over air circulation grills
- Lack of routine maintenance
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Choose the right operating temperatures
Set temperature levels only as low as you need to preserve the particular
type of food or make it appealing to customers. Check temperature levels
with an accurate thermometer. And in the cooler part of the year, make
sure to maintain the lowest possible head pressure at which each unit
can operate. If necessary, call in a refrigeration contractor to determine
the right settings.
| Recommended Refrigeration Levels |
| Frozen Food |
-22°C
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| Ice Cream |
-26°C
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| Delicatessen |
2°C
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| Beer, soft drinks |
4°C
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Check the door seals
Make sure all doors close snugly. A door that's open even a fraction of
an inch leaks a constant stream of cold air. If necessary, replace the
seals.
Do not overload
Stocking a case over the load lines will cause the unit to work harder.
It also means the other products are over-cooled. Remove as many lights
as possible from inside the case, and turn them off during off-hours.
Do necessary maintenance
Condensers won't have to work as hard if they are cleaned regularly so
that heat transfer surfaces are free of dirt and scale. Coils should also
be cleaned and refrigerants checked. For all this, follow the manufacturer's
instructions.
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| Tips on improvements and upgrades |
- Add glass doors or strip curtains to save energy.
- Choose high efficiency compressors with Energy Efficiency Ratios
(EERs) ranging from 7 to 9 for medium temperature systems and
5 to 6 for low temperature systems. The higher the EER, the more
efficient the unit.
- On larger systems, consider installing a multiplex compressor
rack. A central rack of compressors of varying size and capacity
operates more efficiently than one single large compressor.
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Don't air condition your store the expensive way!
Many food stores rely on refrigerator case spillage of cold air to provide
air conditioning. This is extremely inefficient. Building air conditioning
systems can provide store cooling using up to 40% less electricity than
the refrigerated display case
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Cooking
Operation and maintenance
Cooking uses a lot of energy - so wasting energy not only costs you money,
but the extra heat generated adds to your ventilating, air conditioning,
and refrigeration costs and can increase the fatigue of kitchen employees.
| Cooking can waste energy in many ways: |
- Equipment is turned on earlier than necessary
- Temperatures are set too high
- Elements or ovens are bigger than the job requires
- Lack of routine maintenance
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Equipment operation
Turn equipment on only when necessary. Except for equipment that needs
to be preheated, do not turn on anything until you're ready to use it.
An open-top range needs no preheating, 10 to 15 minutes probably is enough
for a range with a solid top, and 20 minutes should do for a fryer. Before
preheating an oven, make sure it is actually necessary.
If your broiler or griddle has more than one burner, turn on only as
many as you need. New infrared broilers can be turned off between broiling
operations since they take only a minute to preheat.
Use the right temperature
Temperatures that are too high waste energy and give poor cooking results.
High speed modern fryers usually work best at around 166°C, a temperature
that will prevent the fat from breaking down.
Match the equipment to the job
Use the right burner for the size of the pot or pan. A small pan on a
large burner means a lot of energy is being wasted. On solid top ranges
use flat bottomed utensils for best contact.
Cook as efficiently as possible
On solid-top ranges, group the utensils on one part of the top to use
as few burners as possible. Try not to open oven doors unnecessarily.
When foods can be baked or roasted at the same temperature, try to cook
them simultaneously in a fully loaded oven.
If you can cook in volume, it may save energy. Some foods can be cooked
partially or completely in advance, then finished or reheated later.
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Upgrade your kitchen for energy efficiency
Energy efficiency should be a prime concern when you select new equipment.
Be sure to consider:
- Infrared fryers
- Convection ovens, including steamer models
- Microwave ovens
- Specialized equipment designed to cook a particular food very efficiently
- Energy-saving controls that automatically time the cooking of foods
Improve ventilation and exhaust systems
Adequate ventilation is necessary to operate a kitchen. Too much ventilation,
however, can waste energy both in running the ventilation equipment and
also in conditioning the air that must replace the exhaust air.
Ventilation improvements can include installing side curtains on cooking
equipment to reduce the necessary exhaust fan velocity, and installing
an energy-efficient exhaust hood that emits fresh air at the perimeter
of the hood and mixes it with the used air and then exhausts it back to
the outdoors. Energy savings from installing this type of hood can amount
to thousands of dollars a year.
Your selection of cooking equipment can also impact your kitchen's ventilation
requirements: one of the energy advantages of convection and microwave
ovens is that they don't need outside ventilation.
Consider heat recovery possibilities
The right equipment can capture heat generated in the kitchen and put
it to good use. Exhaust air can preheat air for the HVAC system in the
heating season. Heat from refrigerators and dishwashers can be used to
pre-heat water. Waste heat can also be used to operate desiccant chillers,
which remove humidity from the air. A heat pump water heater can recover
excess heat from the kitchen and use it to heat domestic water.
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