Fishing News International - May 2001

      NEW ice plants are building  at  Dingle (Southern Ireland) based on French-made Geneglace production equipment.
   Dingle, in County Kerry, is a centre  for groundfish catches and   is the most westerly fishing port of the European Community.
     A new ice  plant has been planned at Dingle for a number of years. Now,    the completion  of  an extension to the main pier has provided  both  addi-  tional deepwater berthing and a   site  for  the  ice plant.
        Geoffrey Long, engineering   services executive at the Irish Sea   Fisheries Board  (Bord Iascaigh Mhara, BIM) set very stringent specifications for the new ice plant which is

   to be ammonia-based. There is a requirement for flake ice 2 mm thick to be delivered to storage at -6 deg. C   and  energy efficiency is an important consideration.
    The Dingle project was tendered by a number of approved contractors and the work was awarded to Hi-tech Refrigeration of Cavan, Ireland.
     Work is nowwell under way ad Dingle, where two F800 Geneglace flake-ice generators  will  be installed. The plant is scheduled   to  be  commissioned in June,, when production capacity will be 40 tonnes a day and storage 80 tonnes.
     Ice, prices at IR£30.50 a tonne, well be delivered around-the-clock to fishing vessels from a chute based on a self-service		 swipe card system.
    Portagovie is on the Irish   nort-east  coast   in County Down, Northern Ireland, and is the  base for  60 to  80 vessels averaging 17 to 18 metres.   Main catches landed  at  the   port  are nephrops  and  prawns, which account for 60 to 75 per cent of landings and the balance  is  very  largely groundfish.
        The Northern Ireland Fishery   Harbour Authority has for some years planned to  replace  an  old   ice machine   with  inadequate production and inconsistent quality.
        It also wants a change to flake-ice, which is now the   standard   in  most European fishing ports. This is due to the heat exchange properties of the large surface area of sub-cooled ice.		         David Lindsay, project manager, put a specifica- tion out to tender, Hi-Tech Refrigeration   won  the contract   and  will  install    Geneglace   ice-makers chosen for their "reliability and   operating  costs," according to the French company.
         Energy efficiency becomes  of   great importance to  major ice plant operators,   which manufacture more than 1000 tonnes of ice a year.
        Pierre Brisset, export manager  for   Geneglace, tells FNI : "Over the years the energy  costs will far outweigh the original capital costs  of  the  refrigeration equipment. Furthermore, at Portavogie, operating costs will be subject to a Climate Change Levy introduced in the UK from April 1, 2000.
  
Above left : Dingle, the Irish port where two French Geneglace ice-makers are being fitted to produce 40 tonnes of ice a day.

Above : installation work at the Dingle ice plant, showing the Geneglace machines.



This tax varies form tariff to tariff but,  in  many  cases, well add 15 percent to the electricity costs of businesses.
       "With the Geneglace system  it is   possible  to make flake-ice  at  higher evaporating temperatures thanks to the large surface area. The higher the design evaporating    temperature , the lower the power drain
and potential savings are progressive rather than linear".
      Geneglace generators produce inside an insulated drum so that the cooling is transferred directly to the film of water, with minimal loss to the atmosphere. In addition, Geenglace claims that lower maintenance and machine life are the benefits of a stationary, rather than rotating, drum whixh has fewer moving parts and no sealed bearings.
      Lastly, ice ice produced continuously without periodical energy consuming defrost cycles. Each ice generator is independently tested to 375 psi.
         Geneglace believes that  the   thinner,  drier, sub-cooled ice its machines produce   is  the     most effective for the fish chilling.