The Topeka Golden Corral announced in the fall of 2013 that they will install Ice COLD in all their cooling and refrigeration systems. That decision was made at the end of the last cooling season and the plan is to install the product in all systems as soon as the spring of 2014 weather warms enough to allow adequate pre-installation testing. The refrigeration systems, however, allow us to do some important research with Ice COLD prior to the warm weather air conditioning season. This series of tests is taking the research in a very different direction and we needed to test new protocols and techniques.
In prior testing, the results always showed significant savings in electrical costs after the installation of Ice COLD, but some important questions remain such as exactly how the product interacts with the system and how each of the three components work in concert. The really valuable part of the test is that refrigeration systems actively control head pressure independent of outside temperature and any benefits of the product in the condenser. Thus, we are able to identify the increase in evaporator capacity (12%) and the reduction in compressor running time of 21% after Ice COLD installation.
Subsequent testing later in the spring of 2014 will involve an additional cooler and bring more details into the testing. We have learned what testing strategies give meaningful results. Specifically, we know that Ice COLD results are measured in hours, not weeks and a shorter data logger recording interval will allow us to achieve greater precision. For this next test, we will record temperatures and Amperes at one minute intervals. We will be able to look more closely at the rates of temperature change in the evaporator and condenser both before and after product installation.
Subsequent testing later in the spring of 2014 will involve an additional cooler and bring more details into the testing. We have learned what testing strategies give meaningful results. Specifically, we know that Ice COLD results are measured in hours, not weeks and a shorter data logger recording interval will allow us to achieve greater precision. For this next test, we will record temperatures and Amperes at one minute intervals. We will be able to look more closely at the rates of temperature change in the evaporator and condenser both before and after product installation.
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