Warm reception for pioneering refrigeration technology

A world-first in refrigeration technology, which harnesses the latest generation of low global warming HFO refrigerants in a Waitrose branch in London, has won a national award for the supermarket and its project partners, Klima-Therm, Frascold and Geoclima.

The project, at Waitrose Bromley, secured the retailer the End User of the Year Award in the National ACR Awards.

The Italian-made Geoclima chillers, installed and commissioned by Klima-Therm, are based on Frascold reciprocating compressors and operate on refrigerant HFO R1234ze (Solstice L13) from Honeywell.

The compressors were tested on the HFO refrigerant in Frascold’s research and development centre at Rescaldina, near Milan, before being supplied to chiller manufacturer Geoclima, and then onto Wimbledon-based Klima-Therm for installation.

The two air-cooled HFO machines, each rated at 180kW, provide chilled water as a condensing medium for the in-store integral cases running on propene.

The judges praised the partners’ pioneering approach – which enabled them to beat larger, global manufacturers in the race to develop low Global Warming Potential (GWP) refrigeration systems that are safe and efficient.

“As a responsible retailer and growing business, we are committed to finding alternative refrigeration technologies to further reduce our carbon footprint,” says Jim Burnett, general manager, engineering at Waitrose. “We are proud to receive this award in conjunction with our partners, in recognition of our work to find viable future solutions.”