Johnson Controls launches the Frick HeatPAC, a reciprocating ammonia heat pump for food plants
The packaged unit recovers heat from a plant's ammonia refrigeration system and makes hot water at 130°F to 190°F, with heating capacities from 200 to 2,000 kW.
By The Gradient Report Staff
Key points
Johnson Controls launched the Frick HeatPAC, a heat pump that captures waste heat from ammonia refrigeration in food and beverage plants and produces hot water at 130°F to 190°F.
Heating capacity runs from 200 to 2,000 kW. The ammonia charge can be as low as 87 pounds, the company says.
It is the first Frick product built on the Mark 5 Sabroe reciprocating compressor platform.
Johnson Controls says its internal modeling shows the unit can be up to seven times more energy efficient than a natural gas boiler in typical food and beverage applications.
Johnson Controls has launched the Frick HeatPAC, a reciprocating ammonia heat pump that captures waste heat from a food or beverage plant's ammonia refrigeration system and produces hot water for pasteurization, sanitation and space heating. The company announced the product in a release published by Food Engineering on Nov. 4 and reported by ACHR News on Nov. 3.
The HeatPAC delivers 200 to 2,000 kW of heating and hot water at 130°F to 190°F, according to the release. Johnson Controls says it is the first Frick product built around the Mark 5 Sabroe reciprocating compressor platform.
Johnson Controls says its internal modeling estimates the HeatPAC can be up to seven times more energy efficient than a natural gas boiler in typical food and beverage applications. The release does not give a coefficient of performance or the operating conditions behind that estimate.
What's in the package
The release lists:
A fully welded plate-and-shell condenser with an integrated desuperheater.
Two-stage oil separation.
A crankcase ventilation system meant to guard against damage from liquid slugging.
A variable frequency drive with 4:1 turndown as standard.
An ammonia charge as low as 87 pounds.
A Frick Quantum HD controller with Unity architecture and a 15-inch touchscreen, which ACHR says can integrate with plant control systems and remote access.
The unit is standardized and factory-assembled. Johnson Controls says that design lowers upfront cost and shortens lead times by weeks compared with engineered-to-order heat pumps. ACHR reported that the company's Frick Coolware software can estimate available waste heat, efficiency, heat delivered and operating cost for a given plant. The release does not give pricing or a shipping date.
Micah Lehman, product manager at Johnson Controls, said in the release that "waste heat is becoming an increasingly valuable and often untapped resource" for food and beverage producers. He said the HeatPAC is meant to "help customers put energy they have already generated back to work."
Other Johnson Controls ammonia heat pumps
Johnson Controls already sells ammonia heat pumps under its Sabroe brand with a similar name. Its Sabroe HeatPAC brochure, dated January 2023, lists 13 standard models from 300 kW to 2,700 kW using single-stage, high-pressure reciprocating compressors, with water temperatures up to 90°C (194°F).
Frick also sells the SmartPAC, a rotary screw ammonia heat pump that adds a third compression stage to an existing ammonia system. NaturalRefrigerants.com reported in November 2024 that it came in five sizes from 613 kW to 5,763 kW and produced water up to 190°F.
Five federal agencies told cold chain operators to take controllers off the internet. On Nov. 9, Paris prosecutors said a unit tied to Iran's Revolutionary Guard was behind the October attack on French supermarkets.
Attackers switched store refrigeration into defrost mode overnight into Nov. 2. France's cyber agency has named the Danfoss, Copeland and Dixell controllers targeted in October and told operators to take them off the internet.
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