ENERGY SAVING
Net zero? Efficiency deficiency? It’s never too late!
By Mike Creamer, managing director of Business Edge. T
he World is finally waking up to the seriousness of climate change, having ignored clear warnings in my direct experience for over 30 years – actually, as early as 1896! On my Refrigerant Safe Handling Courses starting 1992, candidates were made aware of melting glaciers, rising sea levels, flooding, and changing weather patterns through burning fossil fuels and the GWP of released refrigerants. We’ve made great progress in reducing the GWP of our
refrigerant fluids: R454C at 148, R290 and R600 at 3, CO2 at
1 and R717/Ammonia at 0. But this alone is not enough. We must cut the excessive energy being wasted by inefficient refrigeration and air conditioning systems – and we must ensure the imminent rise in heat pump installations will also run at peak efficiency.
In 2015, the International Institute of Refrigeration (IIR) stated that RACHP consumed 17.3% of World electricity generation. It is undoubtedly a lot higher now. The IOR (Institute of Refrigeration) has set itself four key priorities for underpinning its current objectives, one of which is setting the environmental agenda for our sector to achieve net zero – and the IOR has already executed great work on this important priority. So, what can we do to ensure peak equipment efficiency, minimal energy consumption and CO2
emissions?
We must train and certify our field technicians and designers, ensuring thorough understanding of exactly how RACHP systems are intended to work and what causes inefficient operation, to enable them to correct the causes. The current F-Gas training and certification standard
now requires a technician / refrigeration engineer to have a specific understanding of refrigeration fundamentals, thermodynamics, refrigerant properties, the refrigeration cycle within the pressure-enthalpy chart and its interpretation to ensure efficient leak-free opersation.
Professional Tools We must provide our Field Technicians and Engineers with the professional tools that truly show: Q Cooling/heating capacity (kW) Q Power input (kW)
28 February 2022 •
www.acr-news.com
Q System efficiency Q Secondary flow rates (evaporator/condenser airflow and water flow rates)
Q Secondary flow temperatures Q Superheat and subcooling.
Only when a field engineer can see exactly how a system is running can he or she either validate it as running efficiently or make the necessary adjustments to correct inefficient operation. Using the information above, the field technician can compare the measured performance against the manufacturers stated performance. Of course, our field technicians now have superb instrumentation, tools, and apps at their disposal, but these alone are not sufficient to enable them to fully evaluate true system performance and efficiency. If they cannot see it, how can they possibly correct it?
ClimaCheck portable performance analyser This technology, capable of recording and measuring every aspect of RACHP systems performance, was specifically developed for field technicians and engineers, simply because they are otherwise working in the dark, with no idea of total system performance or efficiency. 99% of UK and European field engineers, do not have this technology for their work in commissioning, servicing, troubleshooting, nor rectifying inefficient RACHP systems. Within 20-30 minutes, the field technician simply connects the following to the refrigeration circuit: Q 1 - 3 off Temperature Sensors (to suction, discharge, and liquid lines)
Q 2 – 2 off Pressure Transducers (high and low pressure) Q 3 – Magnetic Voltage and Current Clamps to Compressor power input.
The field technician starts the ClimaCheck software on his/ her laptop PC, loads up the relevant Template, selects the refrigerant, (R410A, R134a, CO2
, R717, etc.) and then starts
recording at 1, 5, 10, 30 or 60 second intervals. ClimaCheck then applies complex equations to calculate every aspect of the equipment performance, including:
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