ATMOsphere America: exponential HC growth expected in 2-3 years

Industry representatives shared experiences on progress made with HC solutions with the 200 participants at the 2nd annual ATMOsphere America 2013 conference held from 17-19 June 2013 in Washington DC. Event speakers and participants included end-users, component and system suppliers, associations, regulatory bodies, and NGOs, brought together by their shared interest in moving the market for natural refrigerants forward, and in building the “business case for natural refrigerants”, as the event tagline promised.

"HCs is the right choice for light commercial refrigeration"

The focus of the presentation by Sidnei Oliveira, Global Manager, R&D Computer Aided Engineering at Tecumseh Products Company, was on small bottle coolers, single-door merchandisers and small beer (keg) cooler appliances. The case study presented energy efficiency gains and improvements in pull-down time, achieved when replacing HFC134a with HC290 refrigerant for a beer cooler:

• A significant reduction of 22% of System Energy Consumption was achieved using R290 refrigerant
• System performance was improved by 16% in this case
• Pull-down test: 13% improvement from 60 minutes to 52 minutes
• Charge reduction and more efficient compressor allowed for a more compact system solution
• The maximum limit of 150g R290 refrigerant charge constraint was met (148g of R290 compared to 320g R134a), in addition to a COP increase of 33%

In a similar vein, the case study presented by Vicente Guilabert, R&D and Technology Director at Huayi Compressor Barcelona, S.L focusing on an application with Unilever and highlighted the complete system energy savings achieved when using R290 as an alternative to R404A, combined with the use of high efficiency mechanical kits and electrical motors, in a light commercial freezer. According to Mr Guilabert, "R290 is the right choice for light commercial refrigeration."

Conquering the barriers of HC technology: dealing with 150g HC charge limit

Douglas Schmidt, Sales Manager of Embraco North America's Commercial Cooling Solutions division focused on ways of dealing with current HC charge limits. The 150g maximum allowable propane charge covers a variety of unitary, plug-in refrigeration applications, and the industry is working on a variety of solutions to deal with it. Mr Schmidt highlighted one such solution, namely a two-circuit plug-in unit and demonstrated how this can lead to additional energy efficiency gains. Concluding his presentation, Mr Schmidt noted that besides some great progress achieved so far, more action is required to move the market forward.

HC exponential growth in America predicted in 2-3 years, after overcoming public perception and insurance factors

Industry representatives anticipate that hydrocarbons will begin to rapidly make inroads in the US, with manufacturing initially in Mexico, which it is thought will motivate US manufacturers to follow suit and also set up facilities. Several European manufacturers that already operate in the US or are trying to enter the US market are also seen as driving the market.

A lively Q&A discussion followed the Technology Case Study presentations, on whether the three major players operating in the US, which together produce over 80 million hydrocarbon compressors annually, can change the market. Conference participants also highlighted public perception and insurance factors as barriers that need to be overcome before an exponential growth in hydrocarbons can be expected, which they predict will be in 2-3 years. Moreover, for the HC market to grow industry players need to know that trained technicians are there.

Expanding beyond refrigeration: low-charge R290 RAC using smaller diameter copper tubes

Action to move the HC market towards additional applications was presented in a case study by John Hipchen, President of Exel Consulting Group. He presented experimental data of an R290 room air conditioning (RAC) unit developed with decreased refrigerant charge as low as 280g thanks to smaller diameter, inner-grooved copper tubes, a technology already used by Chinese RAC OEMs that export to North America. For the R290 unit more circuits were added, one more flow path on the indoor unit, and 2 more on the outdoor unit. Whilst smaller diameter tubes typically mean more tubing is needed, condenser unit coils can be made considerably more compact, so the need for more tubing does not necessarily have a significant impact on size.