“Road to Climate Friendly Chillers: Moving Beyond CFCs and HCFCs”is the theme of the international conference organised by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in Cairo, Egypt, from 30 September to 1 October 2010. The conference is held back-to-back with the Annual Chapters Meetings of the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), which will be attended by an estimated 200 international experts representing 22 ASHRAE chapters from the European, African, Middle East, and South Asian regions.

The conference is part of the Multilateral Fund project “Global technical assistance programme in the chiller sector”, which aims to present to Article 5 countries under the Montreal Protocol¹ available financial and technological options in the chillers sub-sector to phase-out ozone depleting substances, including HCFCs.

Natural refrigerant stakeholders speak up!

Chiller owners, building managers and other end-users in developing countries shall be encouraged to replace old chillers and to invest into natural refrigerant technology that uses hydrocarbons, ammonia or CO₂. The workshop will focus on defining means and necessary steps to facilitate the uptake of technology that results in environmental and economic benefits.

The “Road to Climate Friendly Chillers” conference concentrates on enhancing the practical knowledge on state-of-the-art alternatives to CFCs and HCFCs, to show achieved successes, to explain lessons learnt from the implementation of chiller demonstration projects in various regions, and to explore ways to stimulate the uptake of environmental friendly yet efficient cooling technologies throughout the world.

Sneak peek on presentations in Cairo

Nicolas Cox from Earthcare Products will present “The Use of Hydrocarbon Refrigerants in Larger Air Conditioning Chillers”. He addresses the problem of large air-conditioning chillers that have been converted from the refrigerant HCFC-22 to R-407C or HFC-134a in order to address stratospheric ozone depletion. These refrigerants are however both potent greenhouse gases, restricted under the Kyoto Protocol. In response, Earthcare has adopted hydrocarbon refrigerants that are both ozone friendly and have a low global warming potential. Mr. Cox will elaborate on the technical challenge in this context to achieve compliance with the safety regulations governing the use of flammable refrigerants.

Mr. Tadeusz Jagusztyn from CoTherm of America Corporation will present an innovative system, using water for space and process cooling. The proposed system is said to save 90% of the operating cost of air conditioning and to eliminate the need for synthetic refrigerants. Areas with at least 20°C of temperature difference could use in this scenario a propane based rankine cycle turbine generator to generate 10 to 44 megawatts of power.

Give your input!  

Although the official call for papers has been closed, UNEP is still looking for stakeholders in and manufacturers of natural refrigerant chillers to attend the meeting, and present the environmental virtue of natural refrigerants combined with their superior energy efficiency and resulting economic benefits. Any other input in written form is also encouraged to ensure a balanced view of available replacement options to ozone-depleting and high global warming refrigerants.

If you are interested in adding your view to the debate, and would like to get more information about the Chiller Workshop in Cairo, please contact us at info@hydrocarbons21.com, or leave a comment below this article.

¹ Definition of Article 5 Countries

Any Party that is a developing country and whose annual calculated level of consumption of the controlled substances in Annex A is less than 0.3 kilograms per capita.

Article 5 countries are allowed to delay implementation of control provisions and may receive assistance under the Multilateral Fund. Currently over 120 countries hold Article 5 status.