Crown Battery is headquartered in Fremont, Ohio and they are a manufacturer and distributor of commercial and industrial batteries. The batteries that they manufacture range from 20 to 20,000 pounds, mostly for vehicles, mining equipment, solar, and other large applications. Crown has a 170,000 square foot manufacturing facility located at their headquarters. In order to save money on their operating cost and help their manufacturing plant become more environmentally friendly, Plug Smart worked with Crown to develop a geothermal process cooling system that utilizes the abundant source of groundwater that Crown sits on.
This design/build project with Plug Smart was operational in less than ten weeks from the time that Crown gave their notice to proceed. The process entailed drilling two 300 foot deep wells outside of the manufacturing plant to supply groundwater into two heat exchanger units installed within the plant. The open-loop system brings 55 degree water into the plant to provide cooling for the process load and then the groundwater is fed back into the river. With a system like this, Crown is able to utilize the roughly 55 degree natural water coming into their manufacturing facility to cool their equipment year round, even on a hot summer day. This process uses much less energy than large chillers and cooling towers.
This new geothermal system will provide Crown with up to 720,000 gallons per day of natural ground water for process cooling. This system was much less expensive than the alternative of additional chiller equipment, which includes a large up-front cost and extreme on-going operational expenses. Crown will see nearly $20,000 a year in utility savings alone from their new process cooling geothermal system.
