In a solar cold room every kilowatt-hour you don't have to remove overnight is a kilowatt-hour of battery you don't have to buy. Insulation is the cheapest battery on the market.
Key facts
- 150 mm polyurethane panels roughly halve heat gain compared with 75–100 mm panels in a 40 °C ambient.
- A well-insulated, full frozen store holds temperature for hours with the compressors off — that thermal mass carries much of the night.
- Doors are the leak: air curtains, strip curtains and a small ante-room cut infiltration losses by a third or more.
- Pre-cooling by day plus good insulation lets the overnight battery be sized at 60–70% of daytime load.
Heat comes through walls, doors and product
Three sources: conduction through panels and floor, air infiltration each time the door opens, and the warm product you load. Panel thickness handles the first; door discipline and an ante-room the second; pre-cooling product before it enters the main store the third.
Thermal mass is free storage
Ten tonnes of frozen fish at −25 °C is an enormous cold reservoir. With 150 mm panels and closed doors, the store drifts only a degree or two over several hours. That is why our systems pull the room below set-point in the afternoon sun and let it coast — and why the battery can be a quarter of what a naive design demands.
Specifying it
Ask any supplier for panel thickness, floor insulation, door type and the design ambient temperature. If the quote assumes 25 °C ambient and 100 mm panels, the compressor and battery are undersized for a Lagos or Nouakchott afternoon.
Designing a cold room? Get the insulation spec right first.
Talk to Frontières BayFrequently asked
Containerised or built on site?
Containerised for speed and coastal sites; built on site for larger multi-room stores. Both get 150 mm panels.
What about the floor?
Insulated floors matter for frozen stores; chilled rooms can often sit on an insulated slab.