Brief: Industrial Refrigeration Consensus

During the Industrial RefrigerationConsensus hosted by Danfoss, held in December 2004 in Sønderborg , Denmark , the main following points were reached through workshop discussions with focus on the industrial refrigeration issues (thus the points might not be relevant for other parts of the general refrigeration business): - Ammonia will continue as main refrigerant; work will focus on lower ammonia charges and tight systems. - CO 2 will be used in low temperature applications; there is no general driver for transcritical CO 2 systems within industrial refrigeration and heavy investments for transcritical component development will be needed if demands arise. - R-723 will not be a significant refrigerant in industrial refrigeration; HCFCs do not have a future in industrial refrigeration and HFCs will be reduced wherever possible. - Today, initial investment is clearly more important, but lifetime cost will become more important; the price of energy is too low to drive significant work on energy efficiency; significant problems prevent DX plate heat exchangers from emerging as a solution to reduce charge and cost; the need for innovative pump design i.e. speed, flow, regulation, head.