Insights from the NASRC Natural Refrigeration Training Summit

Natural refrigerants are becoming the new standard in the refrigeration industry. Switching cooling systems to use natural refrigerants — such as propane, carbon dioxide, or ammonia — instead of hydrofluorocarbons offers the chance to reduce a facility’s greenhouse gas emissions. As some states are banning higher Global Warming Potential (GWP) refrigerants in commercial systems, it’s becoming more important to incorporate natural refrigerants with a lower GWP into our designs.

As a refrigeration engineer in training, I work with various retail grocery clients to design and manage the installation and upgrades of their refrigeration systems. I recently had the opportunity to attend an NASRC Natural Refrigerant Training Summit in Seattle, Washington, to advance our knowledge and stay up-to-date on industry trends.

Samantha attending the NASRC Natural Refrigerants Training Summit in Seattle. (Photo courtesy NASRC)

I had a great time at the NASRC event and gained useful insights to better serve our clients. The training was packed full of hands-on demonstrations and discussions with engineers, manufacturers, and technicians. 

Some key takeaways:  

• I met with technicians and observed installation demonstrations. This was very helpful to receive feedback directly from people doing the field work, helping me learn how to improve our refrigeration design processes.  

• Most of the summit was focused on carbon dioxide, which has a global warming potential (GWP) of 1 — much lower than the refrigerants we’ve historically used. We also explored propane (R-290) and ammonia (R-717) systems, with 100-year GWPs of 3.3 and 1, respectively, and learned about the differences in their underlying science and system functionality. The science behind how they work and how the systems function is different. For example, carbon dioxide does not have a linear pressure and temperature relationship beyond approximately 87°F, so if you have a warmer climate, carbon dioxide systems become more unpredictable. 

• I found one seminar on compressors very interesting. I learned how to tell whether a compressor is operating properly by looking for which compressor has a return gas that is colder than the others. A compressor with a colder return gas temperature isn’t running at its fullest capacity, which could affect the proper cooling of the circuits tied to that rack. So that’s a sign to start troubleshooting to find the root of the issue. 

• Refrigeration racks are the heart of any cooling system, and I attended presentations from several rack manufacturers. They all presented different information, so I was able to piece together basics from each manufacturer to bring back to my team. One compressor manufacturer shared tips on accurately representing the electrical requirements for their compressors, so that will be very useful going forward.  

• One challenge my team recently encountered on a project was trying to work with the original equipment manufacturer and a gas cooler supplier. We were trying to determine where certain sensors needed to be placed between the rack and the gas cooler. One of the presenters demonstrated a tested solution for exactly where to put one of the sensors — extremely helpful.  

Overall, it was an informative event that will be crucial to supporting clients’ needs. Thank you to the NASRC! 

Attendees receiving training on CO2 refrigeration systems at the NASRC conference. (Photo courtesy NASRC)