LIT_118: Frater (2011), Energy in NZ apple production (Massey PhD): NZ coolstore electricity anchor

LIT_118: Frater (2011), Energy in NZ apple production (Massey PhD): NZ coolstore electricity anchor

Source

https://mro.massey.ac.nz/handle/10179/2295 — original source (opens in a new tab; the file is not redistributed)

Summary

Thomas Frater’s 2011 PhD thesis (Massey University), sponsored by Pipfruit New Zealand, is a full energy/LCA study of New Zealand apple production from orchard to Northern-Hemisphere destination port. For the Neobiome project its value is narrow and specific: it is the retrievable NZ primary that carries the coolstore electricity benchmark used to size a community’s produce cold-storage load. The anchor figure, cold-store specific electricity of 79 kWh/m³/yr (range 35 to 151) LIT_118, originates with Merts & Cleland (2004) (a NZ EECA / Cold Storage Association industry survey); Frater quotes it verbatim on printed p.27 and is the document that could actually be retrieved. Merts & Cleland (2004) is the true origin; Frater (2011) is the holder.

Beyond the quoted benchmark, Frater’s own two post-harvest case studies (CS-1 Hawke’s Bay, CS-2 Nelson) provide an independent NZ measured refrigeration electricity intensity of 0.32 MJ/kg of apples (mean of 0.52 and 0.12) and a chilled-apple storage design temperature of 1.5 to 3 °C LIT_118, both directly usable as coolstore-load inputs and design points. The wider thesis (shipping-dominated whole-chain energy of 7.7 MJ/kg LIT_118, LCA-methodology philosophy, packaging and shipping models) is contextual and was not ingested in full.

Key claims

- claim: "COLD-STORE ELECTRICITY BENCHMARK (NZ cold-storage industry survey, quoted by Frater). Specific electricity consumption 35 to 151 kWh m-3 yr-1 (MEAN 79 kWh m-3), across gross storage volumes 9,600 to 93,000 m3 (mean 34,000 m3). Verbatim: '(Merts and Cleland, 2004) reported energy usage in cold store refrigeration in New Zealand, providing benchmarks for New Zealand industry. The report was based on a survey of New Zealand cold store facilities. The gross storage volumes ranged from 9600 to 93000 m3, with a mean of 34000 m3. Specific electricity consumption ranged from 35 to 151 kWh m-3 (mean 79 kWh m-3).' ORIGIN: Merts & Cleland (2004) 'Survey of Energy Use by the New Zealand Cold Storage Industry' (EECA / NZ Cold Storage Association); Frater 2011 is the retrievable holder quoting it verbatim. Attribute as Merts & Cleland (2004) via Frater (2011). [verified verbatim against the raw]"
  source_location: "Frater (2011), §2.3.3 Refrigeration and refrigerated transport, printed p.27 (PDF p.40), quoting Merts & Cleland (2004)."
- claim: "MEASURED NZ APPLE COOLSTORE REFRIGERATION ELECTRICITY (Frater's own two post-harvest case studies). Direct cooling (electricity) energy intensity: CS-1 0.52, CS-2 0.12, MEAN 0.32 MJ kg-1 of apples. Refrigeration ('direct cooling') was the largest post-harvest energy contribution after shipping. This is an independent NZ-measured per-mass figure, distinct from the Merts & Cleland per-volume benchmark above. [verified verbatim against the raw]"
  source_location: "Frater (2011), Table 22 'Post-harvest process energy intensity summary table', row 'Direct cooling (electricity)', printed p.147 (PDF p.160)."
- claim: "APPLE COOLSTORE DESIGN TEMPERATURE. The coolstore-building indirect-energy model assumed chilled (not frozen) storage. Verbatim: 'The model assumed a storage temperature of 1.5 to 3 degrees C, and exterior conditions ranging from -3 to 30 degrees C during the storage season.' [verified verbatim against the raw]"
  source_location: "Frater (2011), §3.3.5 The indirect energy content of coolstore buildings and refrigeration plant, printed p.89 (PDF p.102)."
- claim: "WHOLE-CHAIN APPLE ENERGY (farm to Northern-Hemisphere destination port) — context, not a community coolstore load. Verbatim: 'The most significant contributions to the New Zealand apple production supply chain were found to be shipping (4.24 MJ kg-1), packaging (1.46 MJ kg-1), followed by farm processes (1.45 MJ kg-1) and post harvest processes (0.51 MJ kg-1). The total system inputs were 7.7 MJ kg-1.' [verified verbatim against the raw]"
  source_location: "Frater (2011), Abstract, printed p.I."

Neobiome Intelligence relevance

Feeds the NI energy model (edt energy-demand layer) as the coolstore electricity ANCHOR for sizing a community’s produce cold-storage load. Two complementary NZ figures come out of this source:

1. Per-volume benchmark (the anchor): 79 kWh/m³/yr, envelope 35 to 151 LIT_118. This is the headline load coefficient for a cold store of gross storage volume V — the survey’s mean spans facilities of 9,600 to 93,000 m³ (mean 34,000), so a small community store sits at the low-volume end and should be modelled toward the upper part of the range rather than the mean. Provenance is Merts & Cleland (2004); use the “via Frater (2011)” attribution.
2. Per-mass cross-check: 0.32 MJ/kg of apples LIT_118 (≈ 0.089 kWh/kg — unit conversion, not a source figure). Frater’s own measured mean across two NZ apple-industry case studies. Useful to convert a produce throughput (t/yr) into a refrigeration electricity load and to sanity-check the per-volume figure once a store’s fill ratio is known.

The 1.5 to 3 °C design point LIT_118 fixes the setpoint for chilled produce storage (apples, and by extension most fruit/vegetable cold-chain), which is the regime these energy figures were measured under. The 7.7 MJ/kg whole-chain figure LIT_118 is orientation only — it is export-apple embodied energy dominated by shipping, not an eco-village storage load.

Provenance caution: the 79 kWh/m³/yr number is quoted, not generated, by Frater. The true origin (Merts & Cleland 2004, an EECA / NZ Cold Storage Association survey) was not itself retrieved; verification here is that Frater’s retrievable thesis contains the figure verbatim.

Underlying sources

• Merts, I. & Cleland, D. (2004) Survey of Energy Use by the New Zealand Cold Storage Industry. Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority / New Zealand Cold Storage Association, Palmerston North, NZ. — the true origin of the 79 kWh/m³/yr (35–151) cold-store electricity benchmark; Frater quotes it verbatim (printed p.27). Not separately retrieved; recorded for provenance (see Research targets).

Notes

• Year discrepancy: the title page reads 2010 (submission year); the thesis is catalogued and cited as 2011 (degree conferred). Frontmatter uses 2011 to match the Massey repository record and the standard “Frater 2011” attribution. Same document.
• Page numbering: PDF page numbers run +13 ahead of the thesis’s printed page numbers (front matter). All source_location citations give the printed page first, PDF page in brackets, so figures are locatable either way.
• Verified-source-only: every figure above was extracted with pdftotext -layout and confirmed verbatim against the raw. The sha256 is of the primary PDF.
• Scope: the refrigeration and coolstore material is what this page carries. The farm-level survey, shipping model, packaging LCA, and the thesis’s philosophical/soft-systems chapters are not covered here.

Research targets

Documents to retrieve

• Merts & Cleland (2004) Survey of Energy Use by the NZ Cold Storage Industry — the origin of the 79 kWh/m³/yr benchmark. Recorded here, NOT raised as a new RT: the figure is already verified verbatim via Frater, and the 2004 EECA/Cold Storage Association survey is likely hard to retrieve. Open an RT only if the coolstore load becomes a hard, contested model input needing the underlying survey distribution rather than the mean+range.

Research gaps

• Small-store calibration. The 35–151 kWh/m³/yr range is industry-wide (9,600–93,000 m³ facilities); a community-scale store (<5,000 m³) is below the surveyed size band, so the per-volume coefficient is an extrapolation. Recorded as a modelling caveat, not a new RT.

Connections

Referenced by

Sources (2): CR_058 · OT_206

EDT domains (1): D01: Renewable Energy & Storage Systems