Integrated supermarket refrigeration for very high ambient temperature

Abstract

This paper analytically investigates and compares the performance of a proposed ‘all-natural’ NH3/CO2 cascaded booster system to a conventional R404A direct expansion system as well as to an ‘all-CO2’ system with multi-ejector unit and flooded evaporator. Performance comparison is made based on the annual combined COP and Life Cycle Climate Performance (LCCP) for operation in selected cities of Middle East and India. Our results show that in extreme warm climate, the energy efficiency of the proposed configuration exceeds that of all-CO2 configuration by a maximum of about 12.23% and the total emissions are lower by up to 11.20%. However, the all-CO2 multi ejector system performs better in cold and mild warm climate. In the NH3/CO2 cascade, the high temperature NH3 system can be designed to be isolated from the accessible locations of the supermarket. The work presented is expected to help adoption of natural refrigerants such as CO2 and NH3 for commercial application in extreme warm climate conditions prevailing in many cities of Middle East and India.