Ammonia, CO2 to dominate industrial, commercial cooling
Component manufacturer Güntner expects the industrial and commercial cooling industry to go for ammonia and CO2, based on feedback from customers at Chillventa 2016.
“Industrial will be shared with CO2 transcritical and ammonia in the future, in my opinion. We do not see any other options,” Till Beyer, Güntner’s Business Unit Manager for Commercial Refrigeration, told.
Beyer explained: “If we are involved in industrial or commercial refrigeration, it’s for CO2 and ammonia – because of the EU F-Gas Regulation [on phasing down HFCs], there is little space for anything else in the market.”
The new Güntner Gas Cooler Diagonal Compact (GGDC) – equipped with a humidification pad and Güntner Hydro Management (GHM) humidification controls – was made specifically with transcritical CO2 applications and high ambient temperatures in mind.
It performs in regions where ambient temperatures climb above +40°C.
The GGDC has a maximum operating pressure of 120 bar and a temperature of +150°C, providing a capacity range of up to approximately 300 kW.
CO2 ‘taking over’ commercial market
Beyer believes the commercial refrigeration market is leaning more heavily towards CO2 in responding to the F-Gas Regulation. “70% of the commercial market in the future will be CO2, if not more,” he said.
For Beyer, the big trend for supermarkets is heat recovery. Güntner’s sister company thermowave saw this as an opportunity to expand their plate heat exchanger range to provide efficient heat recovery for other heating and cooling needs in supermarkets. The heat exchangers can cope with “heat recovery of pressure loads up to 63 bar,” he said.
Brazil sharing know-how with US, Europe
Güntner’s latest product for the ammonia market – a dry low-temperature evaporative condenser (the ECOSS) – was first developed for the South American market.
“We were approached to develop this evaporative condenser [by our South American customers], using ammonia as the refrigerant, to cope with poor water quality and/or treatment. They wanted a product that has a long product life, can cope with poor water quality, has a high capacity [500 kW] and that can be cleaned without hassle,” said Glenn Comisac, Vice-President for the Industrial Cooling Business at Güntner.
“The US was also experiencing similar problems and they heard about the efficiency gains and thousands of dollars you can save in water treatment from using this machine, so we got lots of orders there as well,” Comisac explained.
“Now we have brought the evaporative condenser to Chillventa, as it’s a global show, and also to test the opportunities within the European market. A lot of people have been interested in it during the show,” he said.