European retailer Carrefour announced, this week, it has installed a full-CO2 transcritical remote unit at a Carrefour City store in Vannes, Brittany.
This is the first such unit installed at convenience store by Carrefour. “The opening of the store is a very positive signal for all retailers who are waiting for natural refrigerants-based refrigeration solutions for small shops”, Jean-Michel Fleury, project director at Carrefour, explained.
Opened in October 2017 and located in the city center of Vannes, the store has a commercial surface of 293m2. To save space for the refrigeration plant, Carrefour installed the refrigeration systems in the store’s yard.
The mini booster transcritical CO2 refrigeration system is a two-stage central unit with 22 kW of medium-temperature (MT) cooling and 2.2 kW of low-temperature (LT) cooling. All refrigerated display cabinets are equipped with doors except the snacking segment.
Carrefour’s technical department is also currently working with manufacturers on an all-in-one solution called “total integration”, where a single CO2 transcritical system can provide heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration at the same time. The project is currently being tested in a hypermarket in Southwestern France (Bayonne). This technology would allow the group to further reduce its energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, as well as the maintenance costs.
Carrefour has also installed doors on all refrigerated cabinets of the store, as well as LED lighting to increase the energy performance of the store.
The retailer is going towards 100% natural refrigerants as part of the Carrefour Group’s commitment to reduce its GHG emissions. Direct emissions are prevented as CO2 transcritical systems require watertight connections because of the high pressures of CO2 transcritical systems – meaning less leakages. In addition, CO2 as a refrigerant has zero Ozone Depleting Potential (ODP) and a Global Warming Potential (GWP) of just one.
In addition, according to Carrefour, indirect emission, or in other words the energy consumption of the system, is considerably lowered as CO2 transcritical technology is very energy efficient compared to traditional HFC-based systems.
