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The Otay
Mesa Chamber hugs the Mexican border
east of San Diego.
With agricultural cross border trade forming
a major part of the local economy, chamber
members need to insure costs are kept under
control to insure profitability. Chamber
member Innovative
Cold Storage Technologies has createda warehouse facility that both protects
inventory and minimizes refrigeration costs.
In response to high customer demand for
additional warehouse space, the firm has
built "ICE II", a 125,000 square foot
(7,500,000 cubic foot) state of the art
expansion located about two miles south
of their original cold storage facility.
This new, environmentally green building,
built by Hamann Construction, adds 29,000
pallet positions to their existing 11,000
space capacity. Innovative Cold offers a
computerized climate-controlled
refrigeration system, blast freezing
capabilities, railcar loading and cross
docking, and the new facility also has a
state of the art radio frequency inventory
maintenance system.
At ICE II, the efficiency and generation
efforts were paid for in part with financial
support from SDG&E, which put $229,000 of
incentives into the project, and considered
efficiencies in nearly every aspect of the
building.
By using motion-operated LED lighting, the
aisles in the warehouse are dark except when
someone is working in them. The LEDs not
only use less power, they create less heat.
Workers use cranes called Condors to stock
pallets. That means the aisles are half as
wide as usual, and the shelves are 50 feet
tall, instead of 30, significantly
increasing capacity.
Compressors in the refrigeration units use
variable-speed drives - which means they can
be precisely controlled. The cooling system
runs at its highest capacity at night, when
power is cheaper, then less during the day,
to lighten the load on the electric grid.
The building is also designed to save water.
Condensation from the refrigeration system
is collected and used to flush toilets, and
rainwater is collected in a 150,000-gallon
storage tank and used in the cooling
system. The building's big roof holds
photovoltaic panels. Half of them provide
power directly to the warehouse, where they
supply about a third of its energy needs.
The other panels are owned by SDG&E, and
their electricity is put on the grid.
Also, the warehouse is so well-insulated
that its refrigeration system can shut down
for up to a day without a problem, so the
company has signed up for a program with
SDG&E in which it lowers rates in exchange
for agreeing to cut back on power usage when
there's a shortage.
Not
everything worked out as planned, however,
said Phoebe Hamann Jones, Hamann's daughter
and the energy-efficiency consultant on the
project.
Small wind turbines on the edge of the
building don't make enough power to pay for
themselves. There just isn't enough wind,
she said.
This smart building serves as another
example of how California "GreenSeeds" Grow
$$" through companies recovering otherwise
lost profits by designing and building
energy efficient facilities that keep them
miles ahead of the competition by insuring
lower operating costs. Efficiency doesn't
cost....it pays!
To join the Otay Mesa Chamber of Commerce,
click
HERE! To other California chambers:
Please let us know about your Green Members
so we can publish your story in the C of C
GreenSheet! |
