Modeling and Simulation of a Retail Commercial Refrigeration System

Commercial food outlets in the UK are responsible for 3% of the UK total energy consumption, with refrigeration systems account for 29% of this total. This highlights the potential and importance of huge energy saving within commercial refrigeration systems. In this paper, a validated model that simulates a commercial refrigeration system installed over 2000 sq. ft to mimic a real express store installed at the Riseholme Refrigeration Research Centre at the University of Lincoln, UK, is developed and presented. The detailed modeling of the display case using a temperature model comprising of three states includes air inside the display case, products, and the evaporator. Additionally, the model presents a holistic view of the whole system with each subsystem cohesively linked together. Further focus has been given on the high-temperature (HT) system due to the high level of installations of this system found in retail commercial refrigeration stores as well as low-temperature (LT) systems featuring doors which decrease the heat transfer from the store into the cases. It is concluded that the trends of the simulation results for the display case temperatures, expansion valve opening degree, suction line pressures, and compressors power consumption, all have high resemblance to the trends of collected data obtained from the Riseholme Refrigeration Research Centre. This supports the validation of the developed model.