FRESH VEGETABLE FANS MEET YEAR ROUND DEMAND
02/03/2011 Mitsubishi Electric Europe
Sutton Bridge Crop Storage Research Centre is set to become the leading European facility of its kind following the opening of six controlled environment stores based on technology more often found in high tech manufacturing and production plants.Built in just 20 weeks at a cost of £600,000 by specialist company Crop Systems in nearby North Walsham, Norfolk, the stores use Mitsubishi Electric controllers and fan drives to control the temperature, humidity and CO2 content in each store.
"Essentially we have sensors all over each store which feed back to a computer. This takes all the data, builds a 3D map of the atmosphere, then sets the speed of various fans to ensure target conditions are maintained," explains Ray Andrews of Crop Systems.
"It gets more sophisticated because we may need to gradually change the environmental conditions over a period of a few days, or to introduce a cleaning-in-place mist, and minimise overall energy consumption throughout the process. With storage lasting for 6-12 months, a small daily energy saving will add up to cheaper vegetables for the consumer. Our software works all this out automatically and ensure the crops come out of storage as fresh as they went in."
Sutton Bridge will be conducting research into many vegetables - potatoes, carrots, onions, broccoli, cauliflower, parsnips - with the overall objective of making locally grown produce the purchase of choice for British shoppers and gourmets.
"This will be a world class facility. While there are four centres in Europe, this will be the most modern," says Mr Andrews. "It will help UK potato growers to become more efficient by adopting the latest storage techniques."
There are six storage cells, which provide a total of 42 units, to look at various storage and refrigeration techniques. For example, different ventilation methods - forced, suction, letter box - could be investigated.
Mr Andrews has developed a strong relationship with Mitsubishi over a number of years, as they have jointly pushed the technology barriers in environmental control. "Bulk storage began to be used about 40 years ago, initially in simple dark, cold buildings, later moving to forced draft, then moving on to variable speed fans and ultimately intelligent fan systems."
Mitsubishi offers a special energy efficient fan rated drive, the F740 which optimises power consumption while matching torque to instantaneous demand.
For more information, please contact:
Jeff Whiting, Mitsubishi Electric, Travellers Lane, Hatfield, AL10 8AX Tel 01707 276100
Website: www.automation.mitsubishielectric.co.uk
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