ACR Journal

February 2022 | March 2022 NEWS 08 Volume 8 No.2 Panasonic adds support to SFHA Panasonic has become a sector associate of the Scottish Federation of Housing Associations (SFHA) to assist the region in achieving its challenging targets of lowering carbon emissions. As part of this partnership, Panasonic will share with the association its R&D knowledge and experience of low carbon heating solutions through training, seminars, webinars, spec design and support services of its low carbon solutions such as air source heat pumps. Darren Reis, regional manager for Panasonic in Scotland, said: “Panasonic as a company is hugely passionate about the environment, and I believe we can help the region meet its low carbon targets through supporting and advising the social housing providers and developers in the region. We look forward to playing a full and active role with the SFHA.’’ Panasonic is currently working with several social housing providers across the region, including West Highland Housing Association in Oban, where approximately 80 air source heat pumps have already been installed this year, with a further 60 being installed over the next six months. Unique opportunity for frozen food industry The British Frozen Food Federation (BFFF) has warned that the industry has a once in a lifetime opportunity to grow sales and help cut carbon emissions. Addressing 700 business leaders at the BFFF annual lunch, Ian Stone, president and chair, said British consumers had “fallen in love with frozen food’’ during the pandemic and that this, combined with heightened interest in environmental issues, has created the perfect platform from which frozen can continue to grow, urging members to seize the opportunity. “Consumers have discovered what we have always known; frozen foods are easy to store and cook, with little wastage. Quality and taste are fantastic, and there is a wide range of menu choices. It means we have seen nearly £1bn added to the value of retail sales above that of 2019. “We need to seize this pivotal moment. In retail, we must continue to innovate with products, deliver healthier options, embrace meat-free, plant-based alternatives, continue to deliver brilliant value for money. In foodservice, we need to garner the new enthusiasm for frozen food and celebrate its benefits, particularly quality and value for money.” Stone, chief commercial officer and managing director of Wiltshire Farm Foods, also said more needs to be done to highlight the sustainability benefits of frozen food. To reinforce this, the federation is planning to run a Frozen Food Week in September next year, dedicated to the role frozen can play in reducing food waste. He said: “As a nation, we waste 9.5m tonnes of food per year. Of that, nearly 7m tonnes is simply thrown away. By encouraging consumers to buy more frozen food, we could dramatically impact this figure. Fresh vegetables and salads are the largest single area of food waste, with 3m carrots and 1m onions alone being thrown away every day. Manufacturing a frozen product is often undertaken with longer production runs, resulting in fewer changeovers and minimising lost raw materials. It is a more efficient process from start to finish.’’ Ian Stone, BFFF SITECOMPLETESHOSPITALDATA CENTREUPGRADES Secure I.T. Environments (SITE) has announced the completion of data centre infrastructure upgrades at two hospitals in south west England. Both projects entailed updating 20-year old data centres, one with new air conditioning systems projected to save £13,684 in annual running costs. One of the upgrades was to a hospital responsible for many of the NHS Trust's acute services based there, including an emergency department and minor injuries unit. The data centre upgrade was taking place on a live data centre, so great care was taken to minimise the impact on hospital services. The end of life air conditioning system was replaced with four GEA Multi-Denco energy efficient downflow units in an N+1 configuration. Works took place in a phased approach to ensure the data centre could continue to operate at full capacity. SITE also completed a large power upgrade, which had to be carefully managed as several critical care supplies had to be briefly taken offline as part of the planned switch over. At the second site, the 20-year old UPS and environmental systems were replaced with a 50kVA/kWmodular energy efficient UPS solution, which includes air conditioning to prolong the lifespan of the batteries. All works were completed without shutdown and allowed for a seamless transition between the old and new UPS systems. The new Jacarta DCIM EMS system ensures there is now EMS continuity across the trust’s three data centre sites with monitoring for UPS, AC fail, water leak detection, fire panels, humidity and temperature. This data is fed into a centralised building monitoring system that the IT team can monitor remotely. No downtime was required for the upgrade. Chris Wellfair, projects director at SITE, said “Healthcare settings are some of the most challenging environments that we work in. We have built up decades of experience within the NHS sector, which enables us to ensure a minimum impact on patients and staff, and reduce the risks of unplanned downtime.” Chris Wellfair