10% energy savings from ‘fully integrated’ CO2 installation in Italy
An SCM Frigo-designed CO2 system in an Italian supermarket featuring parallel compression, a CO2 heat pump and air conditioning is delivering strong energy savings.
SCM Frigo Technical Director Mirko Bernabei said, “this fully integrated system installed at the frozen food supermarket chain ‘Fresco & Vario’ in Conegliano (close to Treviso, Italy) was reported [by the supermarket] to have had an energy saving of 10%”.
The Fresco & Vario supermarket (600 m2; including 23 cabinets and a cold room) “uses parallel compression, providing a better performance during the summer,” Bernabei explained. SCM FRigo has so far intalled 80 parellel compression CO2 systems.
Bitzer provided the compressors (three for MT/parallel/A/C and two for LT). Working in harmony with controls, valves and a front-end system from Danfoss, the system delivers a cooling capacity of 45 kW at -35 Celsius evaporation.
Heat pump using heat reclaim
Since its installation in March 2016, it has provided 71 kW of CO2 air conditioning for the supermarket. With colder months upon us, the system will now start to operate as a heat pump.
“The gas cooler is equipped with a built-in evaporator that is producing the false load for the heat pump. One parallel compressor is connected to the external load to operate as a heat pump,” Bernabei explained.
“When the cooling demand is low and heating is required, the system activates the heat pump mode to provide sufficient heating on the system (51 kW of water at 50/60°C),” he said.