Accolade

Accolade Wines has deployed three oil-free compressors from Swedish industrial company Atlas Copco in its high speed bottling lines at Avonmouth plant in Bristol.

The two water-cooled ZR90 VSD oil-free rotary screw compressors and a fixed-speed ZR75 machine uses the hot water from the compression process along with latent heat from boilers and refrigerators to pre heat the CIP water that is used to clean and sterilise the product lines.

Besides this, the hot water is also used to clean the 84 bulk storage tanks of capacities up to 55,000l each, which the facility uses for bottling operations.

By using the hot water from compressed air into its plant processes, Accolade Wines is able to recover up to 90-95% of the compressor’s electrical energy.

The water-cooled, oil-free, 55-900kW compressors have been certified by an independent testing and accreditation organisation – TUV – as ideal machines for recovering 100% of electrical input energy as hot water.

Accolade Wines utilities and process engineering manager Julian Rainbow said it was designed from the outset to minimise energy usage by employing the best available techniques, which is why they chose Atlas Copco ZR oil-free compressors.

"What’s more, the service team is very knowledgeable and the support we have received from them has been outstanding," Rainbow added.

Image: Accolade Wines bottles around 21 million nine-litre cases of wine each year at its Avonmouth plant in Bristol. Photo: Atlas Copco