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“You see customers getting fed up of replacing their HFC systems over and over again because of legislation. What we’re seeing is that natural refrigerants are creeping into new markets,” Hoffmann says. He is confident that natural refrigerant uptake will pick up in future. Ammonia is already the main refrigerant in GEA’s industrial equipment portfolio and the company currently holds 30% of the ammonia market in Europe. Nonetheless, he freely admits that natural refrigerants are not advancing as quickly as GEA had hoped.
OPENING DOORS TO NEW MARKETS Hoffmann believes that making the technology more accessible will help broaden the appeal of natural refrigerants. “Just add power and water, and you’re up and running. Hopefully this will open doors to new markets,” he says. Several new GEA products are already delivering just that. At the European Heat Pump Association’s annual forum, held in Paris on 18-20 May, Hoffmann presented a new ammoniabased, air-to-air heat pump for potato chip driers.
“With the f-gas reductions that are coming up in future, I think there will be much higher uptake – when people suddenly realise that now they actually do need to do things differently to what they have been doing so far,” he argues.
With an annual coefficient of performance of 7.0, the heat pump is capable of delivering hot water at up to 80 degrees Celsius and delivers greenhouse gas emission reductions of up to 70% compared to conventional gas boiler heating.
Whereas responsibility for assembling refrigeration plants was once left with the customer, Hoffman believes current market trends favour ready-to-use solutions. “What we’re doing is trying to make it easier to install natural refrigerants. We’re packaging our products more as plug ‘n’ play,” he explains.
“It’s a combined heating and cooling solution,” Hoffmann explains. Rather than rejecting the heat used to dry the potatoes, the new system dehumidifies the air in a closed loop before it is reused to heat the next batch. “We’re recovering the energy within the system and thereby using a lot less energy,” he says. Using a closed loop system minimises the risk of refrigerant leakage.
Over the past year, GEA has put in place a new strategy focusing on R&D. “It’s about trying to stay ahead of the market by developing new products that are more efficient and that meet market demand. Products that are easier to install,” he says.
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2-stage high efficiency ammonia heat pump (1,000 kW) for London Underground project
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September 2016 Accelerate Europe
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