The ATMOsphere Review Panel is pleased to announce the first round of case study selections for ATMOsphere Europe 2018 taking place on 19-21 November in Lago di Garda, Italy.

Enex, Euroklimat, GEA, MITA Cooling Technologies and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) will present their innovative natural refrigerant-based technology case studies at the conference. 

The presentations are: 

Several water and brine chillers have been designed and installed in the last 4 years by Enex. The design of CO₂ chillers, originally similar to conventional HFC racks with dry expansion evaporators, evolved in a completely new design. This last solution proved its advantage in terms of efficiency, reliability and simplicity. The experience gained allowed the optimization of the product which now can compete with state of the art products based on HFC and HFO. A further innovation is now available. A further step for efficiency improvement was done in 2017, following the adoption of ejectors for energy recovery. The result is an increase of efficiency such as to bring the new chillers at the same or better efficiency level than state of the art conventional HFC products.

The presentation will focus on some installations during the last 2 years, presenting measurements of efficiency and efficiency analysis compared with existing products. 

This case study presents the installation of a Euroklimat Propane Chiller placed at the production facility of Simone Gatto, a company located in San Pier Niceto (Sicily, Italy), an Italian specialist in the production of essential oils and juices made from the well-known Sicilian citrus fruits.

The supply of low temperature water/glycol performs two distinct functions in the extraction process and storage of essential oils. First of all, it supplies chilled water at extremely low temperatures (up to - 30 °C) for the cooling of essential oils. At such low temperatures the heavy fraction solidifies allowing the separation and its removal.

This phase of the process is not continuous, so the second function of chiller is to supply chilled water at 5°C for the storage of the final products at a controlled temperature. The installation demonstrates how propane-based refrigeration equipment is versatile and represents another step forward in the deployment of sustainable hydrocarbon refrigerant across Southern European countries. 

E.ON Sweden have chosen Frank's kylindustri as installer of four GEA ammonia heat pumps each with 10 MW (1 MW = approx. 2,500 homes) heating capacity next to the sewage treatment and waste incinerator plant in the Malmö harbour area.

The heat pump system withdraws nearly 30 MW of heat from the sewage water, which previously sent directly to the sea as waste heat. The energy from these calories is now harvested from the clean wastewater. On average the wastewater is chilled from 14⁰C to 8⁰C and the energy harvested is upgraded to useful heat for the district heating network through the heat pumps. 40 MW of heat is being returned to the district heating network at around 66⁰C. The heat pumps will deliver 200 GWh per year which is 8% of the heating demand in Malmö. This will save 50,000 tons of CO₂ emission which is equal to the emission from 10,000 petrol cars taken off the roads.

To give the best efficiency of the plant ammonia has been chosen as the refrigerant in the heat pumps.

Electricity consumption for food cold storage is very high and represent a major obstacle to achieve NZEB qualification for buildings such as supermarkets. The operating temperature is too low to take advantage of any free cooling technology. Therefore it is necessary to optimimize the energy efficiency of the systems, looking for synergies with the HVAC system.

For several years, R744 has been used as a refrigerant in the LT circuit in combination with TN R134a circuit. There are many applications where R744 is used directly in TN applications with different solutions in order to increase the efficiency.

This case study illustrates a simpler and cost effective way to reduce electricity consumption for new R744 supermarkets with or without HVAC interfacing. This solution consists in installing an Adiabatic Extra Cooler (ALCHEMIST) piped downstream from the gas cooler.

This case study will present a demonstration project that was carried out within the framework of UNDP/GEF joint initiative that assisted in renovation of centralized air-conditioning system of the Republican Research Center of Emergency Medicine by replacing its outdated chillers running on ozone depleting refrigerant HCFC to alternative, ozone-friendly and low charge ammonia chillers with zero global warming potential.

The proper technology suitable for demonstration project was selected based on a number of considerations, including availabilty in the market of alternatives and energy efficiency. Key challenges associated with the selected technology were identified and its applicability explored.

The replacement allowed to phase out 156 kg of HCFC including up to 78 kg leakages annually. Introduced technology can pay back additional costs of initial investment in 8 years due to savings on energy consumption. The results of the demonstration project can be further used in implementation of similar replacement projects elsewhere in the world.