Mark Vender
The HVAC&R world recently came together in Germany for the gigantic Chillventa exhibition. Stefan Jensen, L.AIRAH, shares his observations from the show.
Chillventa bills itself as the world’s leading exhibition for refrigeration, air conditioning, ventilation and heat pump technologies – and this year’s event certainly lived up to the hype. Held over three days in Nuremburg, Germany, Chillventa saw more than 1,000 exhibitors from almost 50 countries present their latest products and services to well over 30,000 visitors. On top of this, an extensive supporting program included more than 250 presentations at the Chillventa CONGRESS and four forums – a new record for the event.
This year, the official themes were sustainability, the circular economy, and digitalisation. But what were the takeaways for those who attended? We asked long-time AIRAH member and last year’s James Harrison Medal winner Stefan Jensen, L.AIRAH – who travelled from Australia to be at Chillventa and catch up on the latest developments in natural refrigerants.
Mark Vender: Chillventa is advertised as the biggest HVAC&R exhibition in the world. Can you give us a feel for the scale compared to what we know in Australia through ARBS?
Stefan Jensen: Aside from being much larger than ARBS, the Chillventa event has a different balance between applications.
Chillventa comprises around eight display halls, with each hall similar in size to the ARBS event. Of these, around four are dedicated to air conditioning/commercial refrigeration, two are industrial refrigeration, and the rest are a mixture of applications such as controls, insulated panels, packaged cool rooms, evaporators, condensers, heat exchangers, refrigerants, thermal storage, piping, tools, and general componentry.
The commercial and industrial refrigeration element at Chillventa is significantly more dominant than at ARBS. Industrial refrigeration contractors are generally not displaying at Chillventa, as is the case at ARBS. However, that industry category is widely represented among the visitors. Representatives of several Australian industrial refrigeration contractors were observed.
What was your specific interest in attending?
My personal interest is industrial refrigeration and high-temperature heat pumps employing natural refrigerants.
Another area of interest is how the EU is responding to the latest updates to the F-gas regulation that took place last February. This update reflected the concern expressed by ECHA (the European Chemicals Agency), Umweltbundesamt (the environment agency of the German government) and others in relation to the categorisation of a large range of synthetic refrigerants as PFAS or “forever” chemicals.
The contribution of synthetic refrigerants to PFAS pollution is a hotly discussed topic in the EU, and in the US. A few prominent industry insiders are predicting a relatively rapid removal of HFO refrigerants on the grounds that these are significant contributors to the pollution of the environment with PFAS substances.
What were the big trends and the most common talking points across the event?
Buzzwords were electrification, net zero, sustainability, heat pumps, energy efficiency, natural refrigerants, compliance, competency levels, skills, and safety.
For the first time, natural refrigerant applications were displayed in greater numbers than applications based on synthetic HFO/HFC refrigerants. The Chinese pavilion displayed some HFC refrigerants in disposable packaging, but there were no other similar displays.
Some packaged equipment manufacturers displayed unitary equipment employing both natural and synthetic refrigerants, but the general impression was that the large chemical manufacturers had left the HVAC&R field within the EU.
What were your main takeaways?
The HVAC&R industries in the EU have responded to the politically incentivised demand for transformation of the entire industry towards energy efficiency, reduced use of fossil fuels, and the use of more environmentally responsible working fluids.
The work is far from completed, but the transformation is well under way. It is evident that there are capital cost issues, skills shortages, psychological barriers, and comfort zone violations that inhibit more rapid progression of the changes initiated, but time will likely address these problems. The changes within the global HVAC&R industry now appear unstoppable, but there will be geographic differences in the speed of change.
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