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Ice rinks using carbon dioxide as secondary refrigerant.

Author(s) : ROGSTAM J.

Summary

The average Swedish ice rink annually uses about 1000 MWh, which is a total of electricity and heat. The refrigeration system accounts for 35-75% of the total energy usage depending on size and type of activity. When looking at indirect refrigeration systems, field measurements show that, provided capacity controlled motors are used, the distribution energy is about 20% of the total energy. Further, about half of that is related to the secondary refrigerant and brine pumps, thus being an interesting field for energy saving. The distribution energy reduces significantly by using CO2 as secondary refrigerant. The pump energy reduction is about 90% compared to a fixed speed CaCl2-solution and 50% compared to capacity controlled brine pumps. Recent developments related to pumps and secondary refrigerants have brought the traditional systems solutions with single-phase secondary refrigerant closer to CO2, hence further development is required. Experimental data on pump energy for traditional ice rink systems show that they require about 10% of the total refrigeration system energy, whereas the figure for an existing CO2-system is 3%, corresponding to a monthly saving of about 2000 kWh. Next generation CO2 system should profit from the possibility to utilise gravity circulation. A model proved that a reasonable liquid head, 2.5 m, is enough to cover an ice sheet heat load of up to 200 kW. This is well above the average heat load of about 150 kW for a normal ice rink. The economical aspect based on a LCC model and the results indicates that the proposed CO2-system is profitable provided the delta investment cost is limited to 75 kEuro, energy prices do not decrease from today's levels and the type of arena has an operation time of at least 8 months.

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Details

  • Original title: Ice rinks using carbon dioxide as secondary refrigerant.
  • Record ID : 2011-0351
  • Languages: English
  • Source: IIR/Eurotherm sustainable refrigeration and heat pump technology conference. Proceedings of the Eurotherm Seminar No. 88, Stockholm, Sweden, June 13-16, 2010.
  • Publication date: 2010/06/13

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