As talks about legislation may be on the horizon, the reefer industry looks for new refrigerants The Refrigerant Challenge Emissions of hydrofluorocarbon gasses, known in short as HFCs, are expected to increase substantially. HFCs are efficient refrigerants, and unlike their predecessors they cause virtually no harm to the Earth’s ozone layer. But the drawback of HFCs is their high potential to cause global warming (GWP) and thus climate change. Globally, the amount of HFC emissions is expected to increase 10-15 percent annually, and in the U.S. alone, emissions are expected to double by 2020 and triple by 2030, according to the US government’s Environmental Protection Agency. According to Holger König, founder and CEO of German-based Ref-Tech Engineering, this will likely spur two developments because the reefer container sector accounts for about 2-4 percent of global HFC consumption: 1) new legislation further limiting the use of HFCs, 2) HFC price increases due to international quota systems and phasedown schedules already under way. “The international trend for the reefer and transport refrigeration industry is new legislation in favour of low-GWP refrigerants, which tends to stimulate development of new technologies. The European F-gas phasedown is one example of this trend,” König said. Several options are being weighed. CO2 has been introduced as refrigerant for transport applications like truck, trailer, and reefer. For Star Cool, one near drop-in candidate is R513A (branded as ‘XP10’), which has a GWP of about 600. Further options were discussed at an April 2015 workshop under the UN Environmental Program (UNEP) in Bangkok, Thailand. Here, flammable refrigerants like R32, R1234yf and Hydrocarbons, all low-GWP, were recognized safe options for further research. With safety and efficiency in focus, tests are under way in Germany under the guiding principle of TEWI, or Total Equivalent Warming Impact. Refrigerants are rated according to their overall energy efficiency during reefer operation and their ramifications for the climate in terms of GWP. “It does not make sense to introduce a low-GWP refrigerant if the electrical power required to run the refrigeration system causes new and huge CO2 emissions. This is exactly the point behind TEWI,” said Marius Bararu of the MCI technical department. Hydrocarbons like propane are especially energy efficient and therefore well-suited for reefer containers operated in hot areas of the world. C3H8 (Propane) 1591094 Integrated News - September 2015.indd 2 14-09-2015 10:11:07
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