Greener solutions?

Leading supermarkets in Britain are overhauling their refrigeration systems to make them more eco-friendly. Andy Pearson looks at their differing approaches and asks whether they are doing the right thing

S

52

upermarkets in the UK consume 15,000 GWh of electricity a year. About 40 per cent of this consumption is used to power refrigeration systems for display and storage of food. But it is not just the energy used to keep peas frozen that needs to be considered – such systems can have a far bigger impact on the environment through leaking refrigerants, many of which have a global warming potential (GWP) in excess of 1,000 – GWP being a measure of the relative impact of a gas on global

CIBSE Journal April 2010

warming compared to CO2, which has a GWP of one. But this looks set to change. In a series of recent announcements, some leading supermarkets have declared sweeping changes to the way they cool their food storage units, as well as the stores themselves. These changes will see many retailers launching

ambitious programmes to replace conventional refrigerant systems with greener alternatives, based on natural refrigerants, such as carbon dioxide and propane, which do not contribute to ozone depletion

>

www.cibsejournal.com Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84