GreenChill Refrigeration Partners Help Cool the Planet

The supermarket, refrigeration equipment and chemical refrigerant industries launched the new GreenChill Advanced Refrigeration Partnership today with the federal agency.

To counteract the depletion of stratospheric ozone, which protects Earth's residents from the Sun's ultraviolet radiation, partners guarantee to use only ozone-friendly alternatives and advanced refrigeration techologies in all new and remodeled stores.

"As Americans make greener choices, we look for companies that support a greener lifestyle," said Robert Meyers, principal deputy assistant administrator of the EPA's Office of Air and Radiation.

The new GreenChill logo will be placed on advanced refrigeration equipment. (Image courtesy U.S. EPA)

"The GreenChill logo is a clear sign of a supermarket's environmental commitment. It shows that GreenChill members are doing their utmost to save the ozone layer," Meyers said.

The EPA believes that GreenChill partners' adoption of advanced refrigeration technologies will lead to increased energy efficiency and reduce operating expenses to the industry by over $12 million annually.

The 10 GreenChill founding partners include the natural foods grocery chain Whole Foods Market; the employee owned southeast chain Publix Super Markets Inc.; Giant Eagle, a supermarket chain with stores located in Pennsylvania, Ohio, West Virginia, and Maryland; the Hannaford Bros. chain in the northeastern states; and at the Harris Teeter stores in seven southeastern states.

Another GreenChill partner is Food Lion, LLC, a subsidiary of the Brussels-based Delhaize Group with 1,300 supermarkets under the names of Food Lion, Bloom, Bottom Dollar Food, Harveys and Reid’s in southeast and mid-Atlantic states.

The partnership is also joined by Hill PHOENIX and Kysor/Warren - both designers and manufacturers of commercial refrigerated display cases, as well as commercial and industrial refrigeration systems.

GreenChill partner Honeywell International specializes in the development and manufacture of non-ozone depleting refrigerants for process and commercial refrigeration applications.

Honeywell's Enovate blowing agent, a non-flammable, zero ozone-depleting hydrofluorocarbon liquid, is being used by appliance makers to insulate refrigerator and freezer cabinets and doors to achieve Energy Star® ratings.

The tenth partner is the chemical company DuPont, which has a portfolio of non-ozone depleting refrigerants for supermarkets to replace ozone-depleters that must be phased out under an international treaty, the Montreal Protocol.

Under the protocol, nearly 200 countries agreed in September to accelerate the phase-out of ozone-depleting and global warming gases.

A recent United Nations report estimates that the atmosphere could be spared the equivalent of one billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions if countries used ozone-friendly refrigerants, such as carbon dioxide, CO2, which is actually the main greenhouse gas when released into the atmosphere by the burning of fossil fuels.

The natural refrigerant CO2, known in the industry as R744, is neither ozone-depleting nor does it contribute significantly to climate change, having a Global Warming Potential of only 1 compared to that of 1,700 of the common refrigerant Freon.

Most of the 34,000 supermarkets in the United States use what is generally referred to as a “direct expansion refrigeration system” to chill their products, the EPA explains.

"These systems typically use large charges of refrigerant, and they can have high leak rates, often leaking in excess of 20 percent of their charge per year," the agency says.

According to DuPont, there are about six million display cases for food preservation in supermarkets, restaurants and convenience stores across the United States. Many of those systems still use hydrochlorofluorocarbons, HCFCs, which deplete the ozone layer. The company says DuPont™ Suva® and ISCEON® alternative refrigerants have been used to retrofit existing systems and for new equipment.

These partners, as well as those in the future, must pledge to go above and beyond regulatory requirements by establishing an inventory of current refrigerant emissions that may affect climate change and the stratospheric ozone layer, and then setting reduction targets for these emissions, explains Meyers of the EPA.

Partners will participate in a joint industry-government research initiative to assess the performance of green technologies in terms of energy efficiency, reduction of ozone-depleting refrigerant charges, and minimization of refrigerant leaks.

The EPA estimates that widespread adoption of advanced refrigeration technologies, best practices, and improved equipment design and service could reduce refrigerant emissions by one million metric tons of carbon equivalent per year, the equivalent of taking 800,000 automobiles off the road every year.

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2007. All rights reserved.