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Experts explore R744 in cooling & refrigeration |
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The second edition of "Cooling with Carbon Dioxide" gathered international experts to discuss latest developments and future opportunities for CO2 Technology in refrigeration and air-conditioning.
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2007-03-30
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The international conference, held on 28 March in London, showed that interest in CO2 cooling technologies has grown significantly over the last year. 300-400 participants, half of them already working with CO2 Technology (R744) and another 25% expecting to do so in the future, attended the event to showcase test applications and systems already in commercial use as well as to discuss legislative and technological issues affecting the use of R744.
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Trends
Participants widely agreed on the viability of R744 across the whole spectrum of mainstream cooling in terms of environmental performance, energy and cost efficiency.
More specifically, the conference identified the following trends:
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- More and more component and system suppliers are moving into serial application, having tested or already installed CO2 Technology in small scale, commercial size and large industrial applications.
- "Soft" factors are becoming increasingly important when choosing the next-generation refrigerant. While the "hard" factors cost, law and technology will remain crucial, new industry practices, reliable partners as well as the "green image" dimension will influence future industry decisions.
- The wide-spread use of high-pressure CO2 will not only represent a change of refrigerant, but will also, due to the development of new systems, offer opportunities for the refrigerantion and air conditioning industry worldwide.
Technology & Market
Presentations from leading retailers, system suppliers and research institutes, demonstrated the advanced usability of CO2 Technology in most refrigeration and cooling applications, ranging from supermarket cabinets, display cases and ice cream freezers to vending machines, dryers, desk coolers and air-conditioning.
As an example, the world's largest beverage company, Coca Cola, has been testing around 6,000 bottle coolers working with R744 across Europe, Australia and Japan for the last two years. So far, there have been no significant technical problems, suggesting the wide-spread use of CO2 Technology.
Embraco, the global market leader for hermetic compressors in refrigeration, announced the imminent commercial availability of a complete CO2 compressor family. The components have been tested on different systems, proving a 5-10% higher energy efficiency compared to current systems based on HFCs (hydrofluorocarbons).
Environment
Several experts highlighted the superior environmental performance of R744, reducing direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions from large industrial systems. Given that global legislation will further increase the pressure on suppliers and retailers to reduce the use of high global warming substances, the long-term viability of HFCs is no longer secured. A recent announcement by six leading UK retailers to invest in natural refrigerants had demonstrated the industry's readiness to opt for efficient and sustainable alternatives.
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More information:
 Andy Pearson / Star Refrigeration: Key drivers for CO2 technology (644 KB)
Marino Bassi & Ricardo Maciel / Embraco: Light Commercial Refrigeration (4.9 MB)
Andy Butler / Space Engineering Services: Transcritical cooling (395 KB)
Antoine Azar / Coca Cola: Cabinets for Bottle Cooling (1.7 MB)
John Austin-Davies & Samuele Da Ros / EPTA Group: Transcritical CO2 (1.5 MB)
Kenneth Madsen / Danish Technological Institute: International Progress (742 KB)
› All presentations
› See our related news from 23 March
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