By Eamonn Ryan
At the recent GCCA Africa Conference, a highly engaging panel discussion tackled two of the most critical topics facing cold storage operators across the continent: energy management and fire safety. Moderated by Shane Brennan, part of the global leadership team at GCCA, the panel brought together a diverse group of experts:
- Petrie van der Merwe, senior mechanical engineer at Energy Partners Refrigeration
- Roy Weghorst, head of regulatory affairs – fire: Kingspan Group
- Richard Doyle, managing director of DDR Group
- Jan-Cornell van Ekris, Boltrics commercial director
This is part one of a six-part series.
With unique expertise spanning refrigeration engineering, structural consulting, fire safety and warehouse management software, the panellists offered complementary perspectives on how facilities can achieve sustainable, safe and efficient operations.
Designing for efficiency and preparing for long-term performance – Petrie van der Merwe, Energy Partners Refrigeration:
Opening the discussion, Van der Merwe emphasised the dual importance of design and maintenance in achieving energy efficiency. “As a design engineer, I’d love to say it all comes down to design. But the truth is, no matter how well you start, if you don’t maintain that system, it will gradually lose efficiency,” he said.
Van der Merwe noted that refrigeration systems can lose 1–2% efficiency per year as they age – a compounding effect over a 30-year lifecycle that can result in significant additional energy costs.
While most commercial refrigeration systems in the region are now designed to a solid standard, problems still occur when facilities experiment with non-standard or bespoke solutions without fully considering all risk factors. In such cases, poor planning can undermine both performance and efficiency from the outset.
Balancing client expectations and long-term operational goals – Richard Doyle, DDR Group
From a structural and project management perspective, Richard Doyle pointed out that energy performance is now a central design consideration for most clients. As the managing partner at DDR Group, Doyle oversees projects from conception through to handover, and he emphasised that operational expenditure (opex) is increasingly prioritised over capital expenditure (capex).
“Capex is small compared to the opex over a facility’s life,” he explained. “So, we work to ensure that energy performance is built into the project right from inception across all disciplines – from refrigeration to insulation.”
Doyle also shared that clients operating in the cold chain space are generally well aware of the value of energy efficiency, making it a non-negotiable part of the brief. He noted that there tends to be stability in this priority, with few clients reducing their focus on energy efficiency, even amid market changes.