“Knowledge and experience are the barriers standing between CO2 refrigeration applications becoming the mainstream solution for the African market,” argues Wynand Groenwald of Commercial Refrigeration Services. The company’s newly opened training facility in Johannesburg, South Africa aims to tackle this problem.
Even with high pressures and other peculiarities, transcritical CO2 systems are easy to manage for those who are properly trained.
End users and manufacturers of natural refrigerant systems are taking a variety of approaches to fill the training void – with better training for customers’ in-house technicians and maintenance contractors identified as particularly crucial.
At about the same time in late September, about 80 miles apart, two of North America’s primary training organisations—the Refrigerating Engineers & Technicians Association (RETA) and the Refrigeration Service Engineers Society (RSES)—held their annual conferences.
In November’s special training edition of Accelerate America, AAA Refrigeration Service talked about stepping up its training programme to encompass CO2 technology to meet the needs of supermarkets installing transcritical and cascade refrigeration systems.
Bitzer UK has increased its activities, launching training initiatives to support the vibrant and growing British market while also expanding its remanufacturing service centre Green Point, which was launched last year.
With training an important facet of expanding the CO2 transcritical market, on 25 March Carrier Commercial Refrigeration opened its CO2OLacademy field training facility in Germany, at its Research Development Center in Mainz. One of only a few training facilities with a live-store environment, the CO2OLacademy facility will improve the skills and technical knowledge of Carrier Commercial Refrigeration field technicians in Europe.
Moving south to Spain, R744.com interviews the professors Nacho Fandos (IES Llombai) and Ramón Cabello (Jaume I University of Castellón), pioneers of CO2 training in the country. Thanks to collaboration with secondary schools, the Jaume I University of Castellón and companies such as Frost-Trol, training courses have been successfully run since 2011.
In view of growing ecological awareness and the EU F-Gas Regulation, CO2 is becoming a mainstream refrigerant in Europe, increasingly used in both domestic and industrial applications. However, the lack of training with regard to its installation and maintenance is slowing down its market uptake. Training needs to comprise both theoretical and practical approaches to learning to complement the heightened use, as the French Institute for Energy Training (Institut Francais de Formation
