2013 will see main retailers in the US using transcritical CO₂ supermarket systems – a technology already used in Canada. This was confirmed by speakers and participants at the ‘ATMOsphere America 2012 - the Business Case for Natural Refrigerants’ conference held in Washington DC, 12-13 June 2012. First installations are expected already this fall, once the technology receives UL approval.

Transcritical (TC) CO₂ supermarket refrigeration systems are receiving increasing attention in North America, with several installations already in Canada and many planned in the US.

System suppliers map out current and planned CO₂ installations

Several presentations by system suppliers mostly active in North America gave a first overview of CO₂ supermarket installations:

Hill Phoenix has 50 secondary CO₂ systems installed in North America, over 25 cascade systems, and recently the first transcritical system by Advansor in Vancouver with more planned. Talking about transcritical systems, Scott Martin, Hill Phoenix said: “Advansor has over 600 installations of this technology all over Europe and now have some here in America. The first Advansor system built in the USA - we built this product in our factory in Georgia – […] with the first installation in Vancouver performing well, and we have many more planned”.

CSC has supplied 18 supermarkets with their ECO₂ systems in Canada. Serge Dubé, CSC Refrigeration talked about the cost of CO₂ transcritical having come down considerably: “Today I can tell you that a CO₂ system is easy to service, with less problems, less electricity costs. […] I think it is the machine of the future, easy to repair, it costs less to repair and energy [performance] is very good”.

Carnot Refrigeration has to date supplied 5 subcritical CO₂ supermarket systems and a total of 23 CO₂ transcritical supermarkets that are either in construction or already constructed in North America.

2013 will see main US retailers deploying TC CO₂ following UL approval this fall

Torben Funder-Kristensen, Danfoss, who presented on "Global Technology Trends and Development in CO₂", predicted a yearly rate in 2012 above 40 cascade CO₂ systems in North America, typically with R404A on the high side, as well as more than 30 transcritical systems in Canada during 2012. “Definitely transcritical systems, they are getting increased attention and there are a lot of installations in the planning this year. We expect to see main retail chains with systems in 2013”.

With zero supermarkets on the “US CO₂ TC supermarket map” today, this is bound to completely change in 5 years from now. The change is expected to start already this fall, when manufacturers expect UL (Underwriters Laboratories) approval for transcritical systems, the lack of which has been one of the barriers to implementing the technology. System investment cost is another barrier that the industry faces, as there are no economies of scale yet.

Natural refrigerants becoming mainstream as they make business sense

In his speech about the current situation for natural refrigerants opening the conference. Professor Predrag Hrnjak, University of Illinois noted: “In vapour compression systems today, I believe that ammonia, hydrocarbons and carbon dioxide, are at this point probably the only serious contenders to become mainstream options”.

Preliminary results from an industry survey on North America's natural refrigerant potential presented by Nina (Burhenne) Masson, shecco, were indicative of this transition from “niche” to “mainstream” technology: “More than a third (or 38%) of survey respondents [from North America] not using natural refrigerants today responded that they are planning to use them in the future”.

“We will continue to promote natural refrigerants because this is not only a smart engineering choice, it is a smart environmental choice as well, […] and it definitely makes business sense”, said Mark Tomooka, Mayekawa USA.