21 - 



Energy Savings 



Eastern storage operators are sold on fan cycling to save energy and 

 dollars. We have documented the monthly savings by two of our commercial 

 cooperators and present these data in Figures 2 and 3. The "base year" is the 

 1982-83 storage season, when no fan cycling was used. Conversion to fan 

 cycling was conpleted in 1984-85; total energy use was reduced nearly 50% in 

 the process. The need for good storage management with fan cycling is 

 indicated in Figure 3, where higher than expected use occurred in 1985-86. 

 This was due to a tenporary change in refrigeration plant management from 

 October through February in this storage. The new manager was not 

 "comfortable" with fan cycling practices of the previous year and operated the 

 evaporator fans for a longer period of time each day during that season. 



The fan cycling practice holds great promise for energy cost savings. 

 Energy rates in the Northeast currently average 11 cents per kWh and electric 

 costs are a significant part of the total storage budget. Our research has 

 shown that fan cycling results in a 60% savings in energy in commercial CA 

 storages. The simple payback on the fan cycling thermostat controller and 

 remote temperature sensing equipment is currently 4 to 5 months. The value of 

 energy saved is equivalent to 16 cents per bushel of storage capacity. We 

 estimate that the potential value of energy savings due to fan cycling is 1 

 million dollars annually for our CA industry in New York State. 



Literature Cited 



1. Bartsch, James A. 1982, Consunption and loss of energy in commercial 



units. Proceedings of 3^"^ National CA Conference. Timber Press. 

 Beaverton, Oregon. 



2. Blanpied, G. David. 1979. Effect of blower operation upon temperatures in 



CA rooms. Unpublished data. 



3. Smock, Robert M., and S. R. Shapley. 1938. Blower operation in farm cold 



storage. Refrigeration Engineering Vol. 36. 



4. Yost, G. E. 1980. Tennperature data from CA rooms operated with 

 intermittent fan cycles. Unpublished data. 



5. Yost, G. E. 1984. Energy saving through the use of fan and refrigeration 



cycling in apple cold storage. Transactions of the ASAE:497-501. 



* * * « * 



