Straus Family Creamery announced that it is installing a new technology—100% electric heat pump refrigeration—at multiple cold storage sites used to store its ice cream, yogurt and other dairy products at the creamery’s dairy manufacturing facility in Rohnert Park, Calif.

The company will be employing an ANSWR CO₂ Heat Pump system from Flow environmental systems. The heat pump is 100% electric and can operate as a cooler, freezer, chiller, and/or heat pump boiler with a single power feed and simultaneous heating and cooling. This integrated solution is designed to provide low temperature and medium temperature refrigeration by reclaiming heat from the refrigeration cycle to defrost using little to no energy. Flow Environmental Systems says ANSWR also replaces fossil fuel and synthetic refrigerants with CO₂ refrigerants. While advanced heat pumps have been used in residential settings, this is a first use case at the industrial commercial scale.

“Efficiency and carbon footprint reduction is at the core of Flow’s innovative heat pump design,” says Flow’s chief technology officer, Sean Jarvie. “Straus Family Creamery’s use of ANSWR to satisfy multiple heating and cooling processes makes the technology an ideal application that maximizes efficiency and reduces peak demand, resulting in beneficial impacts on costs, grid congestion and the environment.”

Partners include Alter Engineers, Avida Energy, DMG North, Flow Environmental Systems, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and ProspectSV. The project, which is being funded by the California Energy Commission, kicks off in September 2024 and is expected to span a two and a half year period.