CLIMATE-CHANGE IMPACT OF SUPERMARKET REFRIGERATION SYSTEMS
Climate change impact of a refrigeration system, also termed Life Cycle Climate Performance, refers to all of the warming impacts from use of the system throughout its lifetime, expressed in terms of carbon dioxide-equivalent emissions. These include carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel power plants to generate power to operate the system, plus refrigerant emissions during operation of the system, during system maintenance, during end-of-equipment-life refrigerant recovery and/or disposal, plus other emissions during refrigerant manufacturing and transport. At historical supermarket annualized refrigerant emission rates of 30% of system charge per year, refrigerant emissions share of LCCP can amount to over 60% of the total. This paper will provide a progress report on supermarket refrigerant emission reduction programs, including system design options for reduced LCCP.