Birmingham: Yearsley Group has cut over £50,000 from its annual energy bill at a depot through improved refrigeration plant maintenance managed by Star Refrigeration.
Star undertook a general plant audit at Yearsley Group’s Coleshill distribution centre, near Birmingham. Two refrigeration plants, including a bespoke Star LPR system, provide cooling to cold store chambers and a blast freezer at the facility.
Following this review a specific maintenance plan was designed for Coleshill, with Yearsley Group’s site engineers completing non-critical maintenance and addressing H&S issues. The Starcare team concentrated on reducing power consumption and improving plant reliability.
Yearsley has cut £50,000 from its annual energy bill at at it Coleshill depot
Starcare is Star Refrigeration’s planned, preventative maintenance (PPM) programme for refrigeration plant operators. Yearsley Group uses Starcare at nine of its UK cold storage and distribution centres. Yearsley Group consolidated its maintenance programme from a number of external contractors.
Star has made significant improvements to refrigeration plant reliability at the Coleshill distribution centre. According to current data, an annual energy saving of over £50,000 has been achieved by adjusting plant operation to reduce power consumption. Yearsley Group has now instructed Star to undertake further plant audits at other UK sites.
Kevin Chrystal, group maintenance manager, Yearsley Group, says: “Having previously worked in partnership with Star we were keen to seek the firm’s advice on reducing our electrical usage. The Starcare team completed an analysis of energy usage at our Coleshill depot and drew up a proposal to take the project forward.”
“After just one month of implementing Star’s suggestions we achieved our lowest electrical usage since 2003. We now plan to carry out the same changes at other depots as soon as possible. Working with Star has been an easy proposition; the team audited our systems, applied their proposals and followed through with cost savings – what more could we ask for?”
Regular meetings are held between Star engineers and the Coleshill site management team to review and update the Starcare schedule.
