Oak Refrigeration have recently completed a trial installation for Central England Co-operative society at a new site in Derbyshire. In conjunction with the clients consultants the trial was to create a new store using refrigerated assets on A2L refrigerants.
The selected refrigerant for this project was R454C OPTEON XL 20 with a GWP of 148 per KG. (R404a has a GWP of 3922 per KG)
The system comprised of a custom designed A2L dual temperature pack (HT/LT) connected to 11 remote display (chilled and frozen cases). Although the pack has the look and feel of a traditional scroll pack system a number of design changes were made to comply with regulations for using A2L refrigerant within centralised plant. The doored display cases were optimised to accept A2L refrigerants in order to comply with regulations for systems charged with A2L (mildly flammable refrigerants).
Due to the limitations of charge limits the back of house coldrooms utilised sealed system Monoblock units.
With the exception of considerations of the flammability the refrigerant exhibits characteristics and systems requirements similar to traditional HFC’s although having a better efficiency than R404a.
The A2L refrigerant selected met with the requirement to achieve less than 150GWP. The main factors affecting most retailers from 2022 for central plant above 40 kw.
