Mark Vender
With the Mostra Convegno Expocomfort approaching in Italy from June 28–July 1, Carel is preparing a showing of high-efficiency solutions capable of improving indoor comfort in the home, while being friendly to the environment.
“The air conditioning and refrigeration sector on average accounts for 17 per cent of global electricity usage, and an even higher percentage in Europe,” says Carel.
“Nobody wants to not be comfortable at home, yet reducing energy consumption is a pressing demand, with the recent energy crisis highlighting even more the need to have and produce the cleanest possible energy independently. With this in mind, recent regulations have been introduced aimed at incentivising increases in the energy efficiency of heating and cooling systems, thus minimising the impact on the climate of one of the most essential aspects of our lifestyle through substantial reductions in energy consumption.”
Carel notes that residential buildings will play a key role in the decarbonisation process. It points to the F-gas regulation and the prospect that from 2025, some air conditioning equipment may no longer be able to use refrigerants with a GWP greater than 150. For this reason, it sees R290 (propane) starting to become the dominant choice in the residential heat pump market.
“For all these reasons Carel, together with all the players in the HVAC&R business, now realises how essential it is to continue working on research and development of high-efficiency solutions,” says the company.
“The evolution of devices and control solutions can bring increases in energy efficiency of more than 40 per cent in the latest generation heat pumps when compared against units equipped with on-off compressors and mechanical thermostatic valves. The technical solutions needed to achieve lower energy consumption involve ecosystems of components that modulate operation to better respond to the variations in temperature/pressure and thermal load throughout the year. Heat pumps need to adapt to seasonal variations, to daily weather conditions, to day/night cycles, and even to variations in the availability of electricity throughout the day.”
At the Italian exhibition, Carel plans to showcase its systems based on the use of electronic expansion valves (ExVs) and the corresponding valve drivers (EVDs), as well as the latest generation inverters (PSD) and DC compressors, controlled and coordinated by the smart algorithms embedded in the c.pCO family controllers.
These solutions are compatible with R290. Carel says the Power+ driver has been completely re-engineered to meet the certification requirements for compliance with the use of flammable gases. More than different 330 compressor models are available in the Carel software libraries. The company also develops and supplies, together with its partners, variable-speed hermetic compressors designed for higher levels of energy efficiency. According to Carel, rotary compressors are especially suitable for optimisation with low-GWP A2L and A3 refrigerants such as R32 and R290.
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