Program announced for Refrigeration 2021

The Australian Institute of Refrigeration, Air Conditioning and Heating (AIRAH) has released the program for its Refrigeration 2021 Conference, scheduled from May 17–18 in Melbourne.

Keynotes Thomas Lund of Danfoss Industrial Refrigeration, Bruce Nelson, M.AIRAH, of Colmac Coil Manufacturing, and Thomas Frank of Refolution will headline a list of more than 20 speakers and four panel sessions over the two-day event.

Lund will speak about energy efficiency in industrial-sized refrigeration systems. He will review how and why his firm has tried to perform more accurate calculations of system performance by defining rules for sizing components (such as air coolers) and applying these to all systems equally.

Nelson will examine the range of natural refrigerants and offer a prediction of the maximum possible and practical level of energy efficiency for each, based on current technology and available components. His talk will also touch on the renewed pressure in the US to accelerate the phase-down of synthetic refrigerants under the Biden administration.

Frank will focus on the future of ultra-low temperature refrigeration. Refolution is a European engineering company that specialises in refrigeration systems using R279 refrigerant (air), including applications such as cryo-saunas (wellness), freeze-drying and low-temperature storage of medicines and other perishable goods. Frank’s presentation will describe the cold sauna and air refrigeration technology in detail. It will also explore further uses of this innovation, such as the storage of COVID-19 vaccines.

Other talks and sessions will include topics such as natural refrigerants and energy efficiency, transitioning to low-GWP refrigerants, and case studies reviewing a variety of technologies.

The four panel sessions will cover technician issues in the field, refrigeration end-users, heat pump analysis, and global warming and how the refrigeration industry can make a difference.

AIRAH CEO Tony Gleeson, M.AIRAH, says the conference offers a peek into the future of refrigeration, where anything is possible.

“It’s hard to believe that in the past 100 years we have gone from having cooling safes hanging in trees, to drivethrough refrigerated warehouses that can house football fields of goods,” he says.

“Perhaps in a few years we will see a system that cools our food using reclaimed carbon emissions.”

Refrigeration 2021 is supported by diamond sponsor Kirby, gold sponsors A-Gas and simPRO, and bronze sponsors Alfa Laval, Bitzer and Evapco.

For more information on the conference, and to register, click here.