REFRIGERATION
Keeping cabinets cool takes precision
Christine Hartshorne, marketing manager at Precision Refrigeration, explains how cabinets are becoming increasingly environmentally friendly.
W
hen it comes to professional refrigeration, ongoing costs can be a lot more expensive than the original outlay of the equipment. When you look at the running costs per year for some refrigeration products, it could be that you will spend more in the ongoing costs than the outlay in less than three years of the original purchase – this is a significant amount to any customer. When Minimum Energy Performance Standards (MEPS) were introduced in July 2016, all relevant products needed to have energy labels, similar to what was already found with domestic products. This has been a key driver in helping both manufacturers and customers become ‘greener’. It has been a good thing for the industry, as it is helped to drive further efficiencies and innovation in the refrigeration market, as well as giving customers more operating cost savings. Precision is undergoing a programme of continual product improvement, where energy ratings are being reviewed and updated across the product range. Improving the energy ratings is a great way of reducing customers’ ongoing running costs, which for some could be thousands of pounds a year.
There is a stringent test that any product goes through in order to abide by the new testing regulations. The aim of the test for any refrigeration manufacturer is to firstly evaluate how energy efficient their product is, and then to improve it to get a better energy rating. Any result below an E is currently unsaleable in Europe; this has been recently updated from being an F.
Refrigeration companies have invested a lot of time and money in recent years into their testing facilities, to abide by the requirements of MEPS. As more products are added to the regulation, we can see that manufacturers will only have to increase the resources they allocate to testing facilities.
All official energy tests conducted by Precision Refrigeration is to Climate Class 4 conditions, but the team also tests, where appropriate, to a Climate Class 5 environment
16 June 2019
- this test confirms their ability to operate in 40oC/40% Relative Humidity. Precision wanted to ensure that it put its refrigerators through the hardest relevant tests possible, to ensure they will stand the toughest of commercial catering environments.
In addition to the MEPS test, hydrocarbon refrigerants are now widely used across professional refrigeration products, with either R290 or R600a being the more popular choices where appropriate. Both options offer a zero ozone depletion, and low global warming potential (GWP) of 3, meaning they are kinder to the environment. The hydrocarbon GWP ratings are a vast green improvement to the previously more widely used refrigerant R134a, which had a GWP of 1430, or R404A with a GWP of 3922.
Another additional benefit of using natural hydrocarbon refrigerants is that due to their high latent heat of evaporation and efficient cooling, a smaller compressor can be used, which in turn leads to less electricity being used to run the refrigerator, and greater energy efficiencies.
One feature on any refrigerator that is
critical to the unit retaining its temperature and efficiency is the insulation. Some professional refrigeration equipment manufacturers are now using vegetable-based insulation, made from recycled vegetable oils. These oils are collected, recycled, and converted to rigid foam polyols. The end result means that the formulated polyol component is around 50% bio-based. This is a renewable and recyclable material, and helps these waste products to be re-used instead of going to landfill.
This vegetable-based insulation is very efficient in retaining the temperature within the unit, with its thermal insulation performance. It behaves in the same way conventional polyurethane foams behave, but it is a low density polymer foam and very cost effective.
It will be reassuring to many customers that most professional refrigeration products are now manufactured with several green properties, helping save energy and costs and protecting the environment as much as possible, while supporting many sustainable business strategies.
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