Page 15 - Climate Control News magazine February 2022

In Focus
to 57 per cent in the projections for 2021. The change has accelerated pace in the last few years. It was 49 per cent in 2019, meaning an increase of eight percentage points in just two years.
Numbers like these demonstrate the signifi- cant contribution the refrigeration industry can make to our future.
The refrigeration industry can contribute in two ways. Firstly, by reducing our own impact on the environment. And by offering equipment that can reduce emissions.
The Paris Agreement target is to limit global warming to well below 2 degrees Celsius, prefera- bly 1.5, compared to pre-industrial levels. To achieve this, countries aim to reach global peaking of greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible to achieve a climate neutral world by mid-century.
In addition to that, there are also global and regional treaties and regulations focused exclu- sively on the reduction of HFCs emissions, like the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, which entered into force in January 2019, inviting countries to gradually reduce the use of HFCs until 2047. There is also the F-Gas regulation in
“THE PERCENTAGE
OF EMBRACO SOLD COMPRESSORS RUNNING ON NATURAL REFRIGERANTS HAS GONE FROM 40 PER CENT OF THE TOTAL TO 57 PER CENT.”
the European Union, which has been gradually limiting the use of HFCs since 2006.
At Nidec Global Appliance, we embraced the challengebyreducingHFCuseandimproving the energy efficiency of our products to reduce both direct and indirect CO2 emissions. Direct are the emissions generated by refrigerant leaks or the incorrect final disposal of the compressor and indirect are the emissions generated in the process of producing the energy that will be con- sumed by refrigeration equipment.
Embraco has been developing solutions with natural refrigerants, more specifically hydrocar- bons (HCs), since 1994. After years and years of studies and tests, we believe that HCs are the fu- ture. Following are the reasons why:
LOWER GLOBAL WARMING POTENTIAL
HCs have very low global warming potential, as we can see in the numbers presented in the begin- ning of this text. So the reduction in CO2 emis- sions when using hydrocarbons is significant.
IMPROVEMENT IN ENERGY EFFICIENCY
Our case studies show that the migration from the HFC R404A to the natural refrigerant R290,
on average, can allow up to a 10 per cent im- provement in energy saving.
BETTER THERMAL REGIME COMPARED TO OTHER SYNTHETIC OPTIONS
In parallel to natural refrigerants, there are the new synthetic blends presently available on the market with low GWP, also known as A2Ls. The table (pic- tured) shows the main criteria that should be taken into consideration when reaching a decision. One of these criteria is the thermal regime, which is bet- ter in natural refrigerants, meaning it does not heat up the compressor as much as the A2Ls. This as- pect contributes to the energy efficiency and the reliability of the compressor.
FLAMMABILITY
The flammability aspect of hydrocarbons has been very well managed by safety standards, in production and maintenance. The migration to hydrocarbons in residential refrigeration in Eu- rope,forexample,withtheuseofR600awithlow charges, has proven to be successful and safe.
In addition to natural refrigerants the other technology at hand that can significantly re- duce emissions, indirect in this case, is variable speed. The gain is in energy efficiency in com- parison with fixed speed (also known as on-off), which is the most traditional technology used in refrigeration. An on-off compressor operates at a constant speed, continuously
switching between on and off to meet the refrigeration equipment’s cooling demands.
This operational pattern requires abrupt power loads when starting; as a result the compressor main- tains the maximum speed for all the running period independently from the thermal load, which leads to wasted energy.
RIGHT: From food to lab samples, refrigeration is essential to modern life.
Variable speed compressors have more tech- nology embedded, to decrease their working speed when reaching the target temperature and also increase it when there is need for more heat removal, without switching on and off. This ena- bles the compressor to use only the amount of energy required at each moment and nothing more, saving energy.
The percentage of savings varies according to the application but, our case studies with Em- braco compressors, show it can be at least 15 per cent and as high as 40 per cent.
The technology has a higher upfront cost, but it is compensated by the savings in the electric- ity bill in the medium term. Some commercial refrigeration investments pay for themselves in six months.
We can see that there are technologies avail- able for more sustainable cooling, which have proven to be safe and cost effective to help achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement. The matter now is speed of adoption. According to EIA (Environmental Investigation Agency): “Implementation of the Kigali Amendment could avoid up to an additional 0.4°C of global warming by the end of the century, and signifi- cantly more if opportunities to improve energy efficiency during the transition are taken up and the HFC phase down schedule is accelerat- ed wherever possible”.
Further information: www.embraco.com ✺
CLIMATE CONTROL NEWS
FEBRUARY 2022
15