Page 28 - Climate Control News September 2019

A profitable alternative
to HFC systems
AUSTRALIA HAS A NUMBER
OF UNIQUE CHALLENGES IT MUST OVERCOME TO COMPLY WITH THE PARIS CLIMATE AGREEMENT AND THE
GLOBAL HFC PHASEDOWN, ACCORDING TO SCANTEC REFRIGERATION MANAGING DIRECTOR, STEFAN JENSEN.
DELIVERING A PRESENTATION at the International Congress of Refrigeration (ICR) in Montreal, Canada, last month, Jensen said that between 2019 and the end of 2036, HFC importation into Australia is sched- uled to reduce gradually from 8,000 tonnes CO2e to < 2,000 tonnes CO2e.
At the same time, Jensen said the year 2018 was the third warmest year ever recorded for the Australian continent.
In January 2019, he said 15 of the hottest loca- tions in the world were in Australia with the highest night time temperature of 35.9°C record- ed at Noona in central New South Wales.
This has led to many refrigerated warehouses in the major urban centres of Australia now being designed to accommodate ambient dry bulb tem- peratures >45°C for three consecutive days with a
peak of up to 48°C within that three day period. “Leapfrogging low global warming potential, synthetic refrigerant blends in new Refrigera- tion, Air Conditioning and Heat Pump (RACHP) installations raises special challenges in Austral-
ia,” Jensen said.
“It’s not just about the high ambient temper-
atures but a low level of awareness when it comes to natural refrigerant-based solutions and the upcoming proliferation of flammable working fluids.
“Several solution providers in Australia offer imported transcritical CO2 based packaged systems for retail and refrigerated warehouse applications.
“But in jurisdictions with high ambient tem- peratures, these solutions do not deliver energy efficiencies significantly better than the HFC so- lutions they replace, if at all.”
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