This episode brought to you by Danfoss, engineering
solutions that increase productivity, reduce
emissions, lower energy consumption, and enable
electrification. Learn more at danfoss .com.
Well, hello, everyone. Thank you so much for
joining us once again on Did You Know, the ESCO
HVAC podcast. So today we're spending some time
with Dean Groff, Sales and Service Manager, Danfoss.
How are you, sir? Doing fantastic, Clifton. How
are you? I'm doing great. I'm very excited about
our industry. I know it's a transitional time
and a lot of people are struggling with changes
and transitions and regulations, but I actually
find it fascinating. As a refrigeration technician,
I really spent most of my time in that CFC to
HCFC transition into HFCs and spent a little
bit of time with A3s, primarily like R290. So
I came out of the field about seven years ago
as a commercial refrigeration technician. And
things like CO2 were just starting to hit the
market in new construction. And many of our educators,
like myself, have came out of the field, probably
been out for a few years, and may not be comfortable
with CO2. But it really is like the emerging
refrigerant in our industry, wouldn't you say?
Yeah, yeah, I would think. I mean, at this point,
from what I'm seeing, especially in the food
retail side of the world, yeah, overwhelmingly,
all of your big players, or at least new stores,
are going CO2. On retrofits, there are some fluctuations
out there on what direction it's heading, but
predominantly, you're seeing CO2 more and more.
Okay, and now, are we seeing many challenges,
especially in that food retail industry, as we're
moving into these ultra -low GWP refrigerants
like CO2? Yeah, if you look at CO2, I think there
were some challenges here, especially in North
America, where there just wasn't a strong knowledge
base on the technician side of it. on how CO2
operates, especially when it goes transcritical
and all the things that you have to think through
on that. And also at the same time, you're introducing
a lot more controls into the system. They're
controls that they never dealt with before. I
like to think about it as going from a carbureted
engine to a fuel injected engine, right? Exactly.
I tell technicians when I'm talking to them,
if you're not bringing a computer to the job
site, you're not going to be able to work on
this stuff. Yeah. It's just the reality of where
we're at. Yeah. And it's important for us to
understand that and help prepare our students
for these technologies. You know, many of our
educators, especially ones that, you know, may
have been out of the field for a while, might
not have been at that place in the industry where
they were using digital tools as part of their
daily work. But even seven years ago, you know,
I had an iPad in my tool bag. I had my hand tools
and the back pouch was the padded zippered spot
for my iPad. And everything that I worked on,
I pulled up. I was using things like Site Manager
and UltraSight where I could be off -site and
look at my own pieces of equipment. And so it
really is a very important part of today's HVACR
technician. And incorporating that into the classroom
could be a... difficult thing if you're not comfortable
with it but you know we're here to let you know
that you have resources you have absolutely there
are a ton of resources out there i mean if you
look at the agency you'll get nsarc and what
they're doing with their training summits and
getting out there i mean they're they're focused
on not only the theory of co2 yeah but also how
do you launch it how do you implement it how
do you get it to work and and it's important
that all the players from the the commissioning
engineering and techs out there to the sustaining
engineers that they understand what they're doing
what each one of these components do in the system
because it doesn't take much in a co2 world to
blow a charge right i mean the tolerances are
just so small there Exactly. I'm glad you brought
up NASRC. We're actually doing a co -release
of an introduction to CO2 training for the classroom,
particularly for educators to get comfortable
with this curriculum, really an introduction
into it. Because there are some things that are
different, but there's a lot of benefits. Can
you talk us through some of the benefits of going
to CO2 over some of our traditional refrigerants,
say like 404s? Well, first of all, you've got
the GWP, right? So you're doing good things for
the environment there. And quite frankly, at
this point, you're going to have to change to
something anyway, right? At some point, you're
going to have to do something with your refrigeration,
whether you go to CO2 or you go to an HFO or
whatever. I think that's a decision that each
independent end user needs to make, right, on
what's best for them. But if you look at CO2,
it pretty much future -proofs you, right? I mean,
the GWP is non -existent. if you once you learn
it and you get it to work and you already changed
over there you're done you don't have to do any
more for the life of that equipment um i think
if you look at some of the other refrigerants
out there there is some risk you know right and
not not that there's not risk with co2 you've
got the implementation risk right what do you
do with transcritical and the pressures and things
like that you've got to think through but then
with some of the other solutions you've got risks
on what's going to happen with the pfafs right
That's a little bit unknown right now. It really
is. I think if you talk to all of the end users
and educate them, and it's up to them. What's
the best solution for them? I don't think it's
a one -size -fits -all solution. No, you're right.
And I think that's important for us to discuss.
If I'm a business owner or if I'm a property
manager and I'm looking at what those solutions
are, a lot of times it comes down to initial
cost and investment. But like you said, there
are a lot of factors we have to look at. Most
of our existing stores, if they're going to be
looking at that potential retrofit, they're probably
working with an HFC refrigerant now. High volumes
of HFC refrigerants. Most of my stores would
have... around 2 ,000 pounds to 2 ,500 pounds
of refrigerant in all the combinations of the
different medium temp and low temp racks and
air conditioning. So as we start looking at those
large quantities of refrigerant, those HFCs are
getting very expensive and are going to go through
a short supply. Yeah, I mean, that's the intention
of the AMAC, right? Part of that is reducing
the supply. And if you take what we learned in
Europe, you reduce the supply and you can get
some. Very large impacts on the price of refrigerant
doubling within a matter of weeks. And it will
get to some point where you just can't afford
to refill your system. Yeah, absolutely. You
know, one of the topics that you brought up is
one that is it's I wouldn't say it's a controversial
topic. It's one that we need good. education
on, quality education on what PFAS is and what
some of our alternative refrigerant solutions
are. Because when we look at refrigerants, there
is no perfect solution, right? Our perfect solution
is H2O. We're just probably not going to get
there anytime in the near future. So when we
look at refrigerants, whether you go with a natural,
like a CO2 that may have higher operating pressures,
well, if you look at some of the others, like
our HFOs, Some are newer refrigerants. Some are
actually older refrigerants that we haven't used.
You'll take things like R1234YF. When you look
at things like that's tetrafluoropropene, it
was actually patented in 1960, right? It's a
chemical that's been around for a long time.
It just didn't really find its right fit until
recently when we started relooking at some of
these lower GWP refrigerants that are mildly
flammable. And so many times we have to weigh.
what those options are as a business owner versus
a you know just a single single refrigerant solution
because some of these hfos are mildly flammable
which could throw in a whole different perspective
when we're looking at refrigerant management
Yeah, I mean, you just look at the 2 -89, right,
that you've got to comply to with any A2L. You
know, the three pillars of that. You've got to
find a leak, detect it in a certain amount of
time. You've got to react to that and isolate
it. Then you've got to mitigate it with something.
How you implement that is, I mean, there's different
strategies out there, but it's a risk and it's
more controls, right? And you're back to the
control aspect of it. Even when you look at the
air conditioning systems that are going to be
on the roof, more controls in those same issue,
they're A2Ls. Yeah. When we think about these
things that we need to know, we talk about mitigation.
Some business owners may be familiar with systems
like this we've used in the past. If you take
an earlier generation grocery store that had
a compressor rack room where all of the compressors
were in one room, it had louvers on the exterior
wall and exhaust fans on the ceiling, and we
had refrigerant leak detection in that room.
The whole principle was if we had a large refrigerant
leak, we could actually open up fresh air from
the outside and vent that refrigerant outdoors.
Yep. That works well in that installation. But
when we start looking at the rest of the components
within the rest of the structure, that was never
accounted for in our earlier generations. So
if we look at things like mildly flammable, are
you seeing a significant investment in these
mitigation systems that would be used for, say,
an A2L complete system? Yeah, I've seen a lot
of discussions around it. I have not physically
seen one implemented in a store yet, but yeah,
there's investments being made on the control
logic and also the line components that go into
all of that, the isolation and the mitigation
portion of it. Yeah. And there's a lot to understanding
that. That's the reason we try to have our manufacturers
come on the show and discuss things so that we're
not getting secondhand, thirdhand, fourthhand
information. And as an audience, you can tell
that a lot of these are new strategies that we
are facing. And so we're really just now starting
to implement a lot of these A2L mitigation strategies,
which is why CO2, I believe, is such a good solution
because it reduces a lot of that. when we start
looking at the replacements of refrigerants,
the regulations behind CO2 are very different
than other refrigerants. Is that anything that
you can speak to? As far as the reclamation?
Yeah. I mean, for one thing, you could vent it.
Exactly. So I don't know whether that's necessarily
an advantage. There's a lot of discussions right
now on what sort of bar do you actually design
a system for? Sure. Because even though CO2 is...
You can vent it legally, right? Is that something
you want to do? Because you do have a limited
supply of stuff and it costs money. So do you
design the system to go up to 120 bar? Do you
design it something lower and mitigate your risk
as far as a blow off of refrigerant, right? How
long can I go without electricity if that should
happen before I lose a charge, right? And all
those things are under discussion on where ultimately
we'll end in designs here in the US. Yeah, which
gives us a lot of options and depends on the
region that the structure is in as well. There
are situations where you may end up having a
cascaded style system where you're using CO2
within the store, but they're using a different
refrigeration system with an HFO or potentially
an HFC to move that heat from the CO2 to outdoors.
Are you seeing very many of those systems being
designed? Some. Yeah, some of them. I've seen
more of that probably in the retrofit than the
new store. New store predominantly you're seeing
either straight CO2 or if they're a smaller footprint
store, you've also seen the micro distributed
systems that use either, you know, like propane
or, you know, HFC, which is another option that's
out there. Tell me about that system. It's smaller,
self -contained, either air cooled condensers
or water cooled condensers. So when we talk about
CO2, we're primarily talking about the entire
store. What applications are we using CO2 for?
Is it a medium temp only application? Is it a
low temp application? Can those systems be combination?
Yeah, so they can be combination. They're both
medium and low temperature. The other thing that
you can do with CO2 is you can recover the heat,
right? So you can do things with that heat recovery
because you've got a higher temperature there
on the discharge. There's a lot of energy that
you can make use of that we typically just blow
off in the air, right? Yeah, it's kind of crazy
to think about the amount of heat that we actually
just release back into the atmosphere instead
of utilizing. I remember as a young technician,
I worked in an older IGA. Here in the Midwest,
we have a lot of IGAs that were built in the
1970s, 80s, and in the 90s. And in this particular
one, it was my first introduction into a heat
recovery off from the refrigeration system. And
it was a direct heat recovery off from the discharge
of the compressors in the rack room that came
back. for domestic hot water heating, as well
as heating within the building. And I thought,
well, that's a brilliant idea. Why doesn't every
building start utilizing technology like that?
And so with CO2, I think we have that ability
to start focusing on that more and using that
energy instead of just releasing it into the
atmosphere. Absolutely. Danfoss has a store that
we have operating on our campus in Denmark that
is a carbon neutral store. And it's all about
managing your energy, right? It's taking that
energy, using it where you need it and not just
throwing it away. Yeah, exactly. Because it's
a significant amount of heat and the energy that's
used to just move that heat. And then in many
times, firing up gas -fired appliances to be
able to put the heat back into the structure.
So really, it seems to be a waste of energy if
we're not utilizing it properly. Yep. And you're
seeing more and more of that here in North America.
So taking advantage of that extra heat recovery
where you can, right? Yeah, I've talked to many
of our chiller manufacturers that just came back
from the Johnson Controls Advanced Development
Engineering Center, where we're looking at heat
pump chillers that are focusing on this because
we're finally as an industry starting to look
at, well, where do we need to put the heat? Because
the beauty of using a refrigeration circuit is
that we can move it. You know, we're not creating,
we're moving heat. And so the applications become
endless because what if I had a grocery store
that is next to an apartment building and I'm
in. the northern states. Well, I can pull all
of the heat off from my products and I could
even put it into a system where I'm actually
using it as a utility that I can get back to
other buildings, other facilities and repurpose
that heat instead of constantly generating and
releasing and generating and releasing. We can
now actually think about moving heat in a broader
perspective. Yeah. And then it goes back to using
the energy that you have wisely, right? And not
just throwing it away. Yeah, yeah, for sure.
So as we start looking at grocery stores going
forward, there's a lot that's going to be required
for training, not just of the building owners,
but as the engineers, the designers and technicians.
What are you starting to see at Danfoss in training
for CO2? So we started out early on, and I think
the industry is doing a big lift here, right?
And all of your component manufacturers and the
OEMs are all supporting this and is trying to
train just the basics of CO2, right? What happens
subcritical? What happens transcritical? And
I think we're well down the road on that. And
you've got, like I said, NSARC that are supporting
this and other agencies, right, to try to get
that basic training out there. And I think we're
at a point now where there's a... pretty good
solid understanding you know there's still the
rural areas right that that don't have this training
we need to get out there but you've got a good
understanding right now of the theory of co2
right so now you're looking at the control logic
and what happens and how do you actually run
the system i was on a phone call the other day
and there was a fire marshal they wanted to do
a test for the fire alarms we'll just shut it
down And then fire it back up here in a little
bit. No, we don't want to do that. We need to
rethink this. Not that simple. But, you know,
getting that fundamental understanding of what
you don't do and what you do do and how that
logic happens when a system shuts down and how
you start a backup and those methodologies. And
where can people learn more about training that
Danfoss offers, especially when it comes related
to CO2 products? We've got a training page just
dedicated for CO2 on its own. I'd have to look
up the address. I'll email that to you. But if
you just Google Dan Foss CO2 training, there
are probably 4 ,000 plus hours of training out
there. on different concepts, different controls,
different systems, everything from basic operation
to advanced controls. And then we also have our
own training where we'll train you on controls.
And we also have a mobile training unit that
we're getting ready to launch and take around
the US. It's designed to be representative of
an actual rack. So when the technicians get there,
they're going to be looking at it. The controls
will be there. It's got the compressor sets there.
It's got the gas cooler there. And you're able
to open and shut louvers to adjust the load where
you're seeing the compressors ramp up. from variable
speed you're seeing the ejectors as this has
got an ejector system on a kick in and that's
where you're starting to see the technicians
or at least where i've used it it starts to click
from theory to application right and then you
you see the light bulb go off like now i understand
what's happening exactly um and there are a lot
of companies out there that have these type of
systems that are training not just danfoss Well,
we sure appreciate the commitment that Dan Foss
has to education and industry. I encourage everyone
to go to danfoss .com, learn a little bit more
about what's happening with Dan Foss and do some
searching for the CO2 training. We'll put links
to that into the description of the video. And
Dean, I sure appreciate you joining us and hope
to dive a little bit deeper into these conversations
in the future. I hope so, too. And I think if
there's one thing that I could leave with the
technicians out there is learn CO2. It's coming.
It's not going to go away. Learn it. And you're
going to be set for a long time. I completely
agree. Well, thank you very much for joining
us. Thank you, sir. Have a good day.