Energy Recovery, an energy recovery device manufacturer of technologies that solve complex challenges for industrial fluid-flow markets worldwide, has joined the North American Sustainable Refrigeration Council (NASRC) at the silver level.
NASRC is an action-oriented 501c3 nonprofit working in partnership with the supermarket industry to create a climate-friendly future for refrigeration by eliminating the barriers to natural refrigerant adoption in supermarkets. Natural refrigerants – including ammonia, hydrocarbons, and carbon dioxide (CO2) – have zero or near-zero global warming potential (GWP), making them a climate-friendly alternative to hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) refrigerants.
HFCs are super-polluting greenhouse gases growing faster than any other greenhouse gas on the planet, and phasing them out has been identified as one of the most impactful climate solutions globally. As a result, supermarkets are facing increasing regulatory pressures and new corporate sustainability commitments to transition away from HFCs. Though natural refrigerants are the most climate-friendly solution, unique market challenges such as upfront cost premiums, service readiness, technology gaps, and uncertainty around energy performance have prevented their widescale adoption.
Energy performance is particularly important to achieving the lowest possible carbon footprint in supermarkets, as they represent the most energy-intensive type of commercial building, and their refrigeration systems are usually the largest source of energy use. CO2-based refrigeration systems have faced particular scrutiny for energy performance challenges in warm ambient climates. Though CO2 often performs well as a refrigerant in cool ambient climates, it has been shown to be less energy efficient in warm ambient climates without additional energy-saving design features.
Energy Recovery, which focuses on designing and manufacturing solutions that make industrial processes more efficient and sustainable, is working to address that challenge. The company’s newest pressure exchanger device, the PX G1300, allows CO2-based refrigeration systems to operate more efficiently in all ambient temperatures. It works by harvesting pressure energy to reduce compressor work and lessen power requirements, in turn increasing the efficiency of the system and contributing to a lower overall carbon footprint.
“Energy Recovery has been making industrial processes more sustainable and affordable for nearly three decades, and we’re excited that our innovative technology can do the same for the CO2 refrigeration industry,” said Kuo-Chiang (K-C) Chen, vice president of engineering and new product launch, Energy Recovery. “Our PX not only enables the use of natural refrigerants that have a significantly lower global warming potential, but also reduces electricity use of the entire system. We’ve found a partner with a shared goal in the NASRC, and we look forward to working together to future-proof CO2 refrigeration.”
The company has now joined NASRC’s network of over 140 stakeholders from across the refrigeration industry who are all contributing to NASRC’s work to advance natural refrigerants.
“We welcome Energy Recovery to our growing network and look forward to leveraging their expertise,” said Danielle Wright, executive director of NASRC. “Optimizing energy performance is critical to the future success of natural refrigerants and to achieving the maximum emissions reduction potential in the supermarket sector.”
NASRC’s membership network represents more than 38,000 US food retail locations and stakeholders from virtually every sector of the commercial refrigeration industry, including service contractors, manufacturers and suppliers, consultants, engineering firms, trade associations, distributors, and nonprofits.
Register for NASRC’s Sustainable Refrigeration Summit to access a free, on-demand presentation of Energy Recovery’s PX G1300 device. More information about Energy Recovery can be found here: https://energyrecovery.com/refrigeration/.