FORECOURT AND CONVENIENCE STORES
CO 2 systems used across the EU, Norway and Switzerland has almost tripled in the last three years and now accounts for 8% of the overall m arket share in the food retail market. This g rowth is being driven by the big brands who n eed future proof alternatives to the traditional H FC based systems.
There are perhaps more innovative
developments taking place closer to home. The humble fuel station may be one of those places. The vast majority of us rely on in the excess of 8000 fuel stations in the UK to supply us with f uel for our daily commute, but increasingly to s upply us with basic supplies like bread and milk via an onsite shop or supermarket.
With the growing number of fuel stations including shops comes the need for refrigeration a long with an increased requirement for air- c onditioning in the larger retail space. Thinking o f the air-conditioning and refrigerated cabinets as one unified system instead of two split systems, yields multiple advantages to fuel stations. The unique properties of CO 2 make this a much more viable proposition for the refrigeration of the perishables, the cooling required for air conditioning and the heating of the store provided through heat recovery from the
refrigeration system. This makes it an extremely efficient option compared to systems with separate AC heat pumps requiring a lot of energy t o heat and utilise higher GWP refrigerants. Indoor units for use with CO 2 such as cassettes, w all mounted and concealed ducted units are a vailable. These have two streams (four pipes), similar to chilled water fan coils. One stream is for the direct CO 2 cooling required for air conditioning, and the second stream will either accept direct CO 2 hot gas or indirect LPHW for low cost heating with the heat being recovered f rom the refrigeration pack. Given the restriction in space on these forecourt installations, the advantages of these units are that they be can easily integrated into a new CO 2 installation, without the need for separate indoor units for the heating and cooling requirements.
Examples of the benefits and savings of
using this application have be seen in many fuel stations where CO 2 was carefully considered for use as a refrigerant. The energy saving generated o n the cooling of refrigerated cabinets can be as m uch as 7% compared to HFC based systems, w hile the power required for the heating and air conditioning system has reduced by as much as a staggering 85%, giving a combined reduction
of over 45%. Assuming a typical fuel station previously had an energy usage of 65MWh per annum for refrigeration and air conditioning, implementing a combined CO2 refrigeration and air conditioning system could give a total energy saving of in excess of 29MWh. These savings do not include any extra savings made due to the future proof nature of the system against t raditional HFC based systems. A fairly loose extrapolation of this saving applied to every fuel station in the UK, would result in a saving similar to the power required for 53,000 average UK homes or a generate a cost saving of over £ 35million per year.
I n conclusion, there are many benefits to the move to CO 2 for the combined refrigeration and air conditioning requirements of forecourts. The reduction in operational costs, quick return on investment and environmental benefits alone a re enough to sway the argument for it against t raditional HFC based systems, let alone the phase down of GWP on refrigerants required by the F-Gas regulations. CO 2 systems are growing in forecourt applications and given the current restrictions and regulatory issues of the alternatives, this is likely to continue for the foreseeable future.
Hubbard
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