IGPN - International Green Purchasing Network

March 4, 2015

The natural refrigerant set to reduce supermarket energy use

Terry Slavin
Wednesday 4 March 2015 15.28 GMT

Could the sugar you have in your morning coffee help prevent global warming?

Sainsbury’s thinks the answer is yes and is putting the question to the test in its Portishead store in Somerset, where it is using a refrigerant derived from waste sugar beet in its fridges and freezers.

Not only does the CO2-based refrigerant, called eCO2, have a global warming potential of one – 3,922 times less than R404A, the refrigerant most commonly used by supermarkets – it is also derived from a more sustainable source than other CO2-based refrigerants, which are often derived from hydrocarbons or ammonia.

Paul Crewe, head of sustainability for Sainsbury’s said he was interested in eCO2 when he found out that British Sugar, Sainsbury’s main sugar supplier, derives the CO2 for the refrigerant from waste sugar beet in its refinery in Norfolk.

“One of the things we are very keen on is real life examples of circular economy, putting every single product in our supply chain to good use. This is an opportunity for CO2 from a product that goes into Sainsbury’s [sugar] being deployed into one of our refrigerant systems to prove that it does the same job as other derived sources of CO2,” said Crewe.

New EU rules
So far 200 Sainsbury’s stores have refrigeration systems that use CO2, but it is far from alone. A survey of north European supermarkets by Carrier Commercial Refrigeration found 65% of respondents had begun to opt for non HFC refrigerants, with CO2 the choice for 83% of those who had already converted.

This has been driven, to an extent, by new EU regulations on the use hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). The EU wants to cut F-gas emissions (fluorinated greenhouse gases) by two-thirds by 2030 (pdf) and the use of R404A, which is one of the worst offenders, will be banned in new commercial equipment from 2020.

Read more at The Guardian.

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