Food charity receives free hot water
3rd July 2026
UK: London food distribution charity Felix is using Beijer Ref’s SEC200 heat recovery technology to help deliver hot water with almost zero energy consumption.
Felix rescues surplus food and delivers it to community organisations and schools. The SEC200 was installed at its Deptford site as part of a major refrigeration project delivered by KDH Projects, with support from Beijer Ref Technical and the HVACR commissioning team.
The system recovers waste heat from the refrigeration plant and uses it to supply hot water to the site’s new canteen, utility room, shower room and first-floor toilets.
KDH Projects has reported that the data shows almost zero energy consumption for hot water production and has virtually eliminated the need for traditional water heating.
The Deptford installation is not the first SEC200 installation by the charity and is now installing the technology across all new sites.
SEC, or Sustainable Energy Controller, is a standalone heat recovery product that harvests heat from refrigeration and air conditioning systems and converts it into hot water. It is designed for commercial applications where there is both a cooling demand from refrigeration or air conditioning, and a heating demand for hot water or low temperature heating. It can also be retrofitted into existing refrigeration systems.
When a refrigeration system is running, SEC recovers heat that would otherwise be rejected and uses it to generate hot water. Even when the cold rooms are satisfied and down to temperature, SEC continues to generate heat by operating the condensing unit as an air-to-water heat pump. This maximises the use of a refrigeration system that would have traditionally switched off when the space being refrigerated was at its set point.
For the Deptford project, the SEC200 was installed alongside Danfoss Optyma condensing units, with evaporators varying by application.
