A paper presented by Judith Evans of Bristol University at an Institute of Refrigeration event in 2008, reports on a Defra funded project undertaken by four research institutes which set out to:
With regard to mapping, the paper identifies and ranks the 10 food refrigeration operations with the greatest potential to achieve the greatest total reduction in energy usage. It finds that the energy saving potential in the top five operations - retail, catering, transport, storage and primary chilling lies between 4300 and 8500 GWh/y.
However, the mapping exercise revealed a dearth of reliable measured data on the energy consumption of refrigeration systems within the total food cold chain. The paper highlights the fact that maintenance of refrigeration equipment is poor and, in the retail sector, finds there to be enormous variability in the efficiency of both chiller and frozen cabinets.
Re. Novel technologies it says "A comprehensive review of new/alternative systems has revealed several with energy saving potential if applied to food refrigeration. However, none appear to be likely to produce a step change reduction in refrigeration energy consumption within the next decade."
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