6 Reasons to Improve Your Refrigerant Management
As anyone who works in the refrigeration industry will tell you, refrigerant management is a critical part of the operation of a commercial refrigeration system, such as those that exist in every grocery store or supermarket around the world. However, study after study from the US EPA and others reveals that the average refrigerant leak rate in retail grocery continues to hover around 25%/year, damaging both the environment and each supermarket’s bottom line.
In this blog post, we’ll detail the many ways better refrigerant management can benefit any business that relies on supermarket refrigeration systems. As you’ll see below, refrigerant management consists of more than just minimizing leaks. Ensuring proper refrigerant charge is also paramount, as having too much refrigerant can drastically increase the cost, reporting, and greenhouse gas impacts associated with a leak, while too little refrigerant can prevent the refrigeration from providing adequate cooling and reduce energy efficiency under certain operating conditions.
This is where Axiom Cloud’s Virtual Technician application can help. By using real-time data to continuously and autonomously calculate a refrigeration system’s total charge, Virtual Technician can detect leaks early and determine whether a higher or lower charge would provide more optimal performance. Whether just one or all six of the benefits shown below resonate with you and your organization, reach out to Axiom Cloud today to discuss how Virtual Technician may be able to assist your refrigerant management efforts.
Without further ado, here are 6 reasons it makes sense for store owners or operators to spend more time focusing on refrigerant management:
1. Lower refrigerant costs
The most obvious benefit from better refrigerant management and lower leak rates is the cost savings associated with needing to replace less refrigerant every year. The average supermarket spends around $15,000 on refrigerant annually, and according to the EPA’s GreenChill Program, if every supermarket in the USA reduced their leak rate from 25% to the GreenChill average of 14%, savings of $108 million/year would be realized in refrigerant cost alone.
2. Fewer business interruptions (refrigeration outages)
By lowering leak rates, supermarket owners will also save on the maintenance costs associated with service calls that are required to add more refrigerant or respond to case temperature alarms caused by low charge scenarios. By more closely monitoring the total charge of a refrigeration system, owners will also reduce the likelihood of a critically low refrigerant charge that could lead to the total loss of cooling capacity and a catastrophic food spoilage event.
3. Lower energy costs
Multiple studies have also shown that inaccurate charging of refrigeration systems can lead to significant negative impacts on their energy efficiency. In particular, this study from Purdue University concluded that a refrigerant charge that is 25% lower than optimal decreased refrigeration and HVAC system energy efficiency ratios by an average of 16%, which directly and significantly impacts the energy costs of operating such systems. Considering that a supermarket’s refrigeration system is its largest energy consumer, a 16% decrease in refrigeration energy efficiency has a large impact on a store’s monthly energy bill.
4. Lower direct emissions
Refrigerant management has been ranked as one of the top 5 opportunities for combating climate change by Project Drawdown. Because of their high global warming potentials (GWP), one pound of leaked HFC such as R404a or R407a has the same impact on the atmosphere as thousands of pounds of carbon dioxide. To quote Project Drawdown directly, “HFCs, the primary replacement [for CFCs after the ratification of the Montreal Protocol], spare the ozone layer, but have 1,000 to 9,000 times greater capacity to warm the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.”
Direct emissions are defined by the Greenhouse Gas Protocol as emissions from sources that are owned or controlled by an entity, such as the refrigeration system in a supermarket. For companies such as Walmart and Amazon that are actively tracking and trying to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, reducing refrigerant leaks in their thousands of supermarkets provides a massive opportunity to reduce their direct emissions.
5. Lower indirect emissions
Indirect emissions are emissions that are a consequence of the activities of an entity, but occur at sources owned or controlled by another entity. In this case, we are referring to the indirect emissions that occur due to consumption of electricity purchased to operate a refrigeration system. Cooling represents between 25% and 30% of global consumption of electricity, and refrigeration alone accounts for 14% of all electricity consumption in US commercial buildings.
A supermarket’s indirect emissions will be reduced as a direct result of maintaining the optimal refrigerant charge, due to the energy efficiency gains that will result. Considering that the refrigeration system accounts for 40-60% of a supermarket’s energy consumption, and that GHG emissions roughly double when considering the impacts of indirect emissions as well as direct emissions, a more efficient refrigeration system can make a substantial impact on the total emissions profile of a supermarket.
6. Compliance with regulations
By getting a better handle on refrigerant management now, supermarket owners can set themselves up to more readily and cost-effectively comply with future regulations surrounding the use and management of HFCs. In the short term, better refrigerant management will lead to cost savings through reduced reporting obligations, as “owners or operators must submit a report to EPA for any appliance containing 50 or more pounds of ozone-depleting refrigerant that leaks 125 percent or more of the full charge in a calendar year.” In addition, having a better handle on refrigerant leaks can help supermarket owners avoid massive fines associated with improper leak management and reporting.
In the medium to long term, regulations such as the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol, proposed legislation in the US Senate, and California Senate Bill 1383 are forcing operators of commercial refrigeration systems to drastically reduce their use of and emissions from HFCs. In California, proposed regulations from the California Air Resources Board would force grocery chains to reduce their weighted average GWP to below 1,400 by 2030, which would effectively necessitate the widespread adoption of natural refrigerants such as carbon dioxide and ammonia. Visit the North American Sustainable Refrigeration Council (NASRC) to learn more about the regulations and incentives surrounding the use of these natural refrigerants.
If you’re interested in learning more about how Axiom Cloud can help support your refrigeration management goals and reduce leak rates, visit our Resources page or reach out today!
Turner is a Lead Sales Engineer at Axiom Cloud Inc.
Axiom Cloud Inc. uses Artificial Intelligence to transform the world’s thermal systems into intelligent, flexible, and resilient assets. At Axiom Cloud, our mission is to create a more sustainable future by transforming the way that the world’s cooling systems interact with the power grid and the atmosphere. If you’re interested in learning more about our approach to refrigerant management, or our Virtual Battery and Virtual Technician applications, contact us today.