Brief: Institute of Refrigeration

The Institute of Refrigeration (IoR) has published a guidance note on "Energy Efficiency and Refrigerant Choice". The key message of this note is "Refrigerant choice matters, but many other design issues matter more". "Mistakes in design and operation/maintenance (choice and sizing of the components, excessive cooling load, etc.) can vastly affect the efficiency of a plant (i.e. by 20-50%) where the impact of the refrigerant on efficiency is likely be less than 5%, assuming all other design parameters are optimised". The 2005 Annual Conference of the IoR entitled "The Future of Cooling - Opportunities and Threats" will be held on November 10 in London.