The Portuguese retail sector’s latest store to use a CO2 transcritical system fitted with a multi-ejector from Danfoss opens today. Danish manufacturer Advansor provided the rack for the Pingo Doce hypermarket in Alverca, near Lisbon. Hiperfrio performed the complete installation of the system.
Pingo Doce is owned by Jerónimo Martins, a Portuguese multinational food retail company that also owns Recheio Cash & Carry in Portugal, Biedronka in Poland, and Ara in Colombia. For Recheio and Pingo Doce hypermarkets, the complete management of the technical, maintenance and subcontracting services is outsourced to Gesfuste, an equipment sales and maintenance firm based in Braga. The consultancy company Consulfrio settled all the technical specifications for the refrigeration installation in Alverca. Consulfrio is already responsible for almost 40 Jerónimo Martins projects in Portugal.
“For a supermarket of this size, the upfront costs are almost nothing compared to the efficiency gains.”
Joana Costa, Advansor
Joana Costa, Advansor’s regional technical manager for Portugal and Spain, told R744.com that payback time and component availability drove the decision to opt for an ejector.
“For a supermarket of this size, the upfront costs are almost nothing compared to the efficiency gains,” said Costa. She predicted a payback time for this store of two years or under.
Heat recovered from the rack is used to heat the store. The rack can also provide air-conditioning if needed. (At the customer’s request, the system was designed to satisfy the refrigeration load; more compressors would be needed to serve 100% of the store’s HVAC needs from the rack alone).
