Welcome to Did You Know, the ESCO HVAC podcast,
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new for us to learn. I'm Clifton Beck and this
is Did You Know? The ESCO HVAC Podcast. Let's
dive in. Well, hello, everyone. Thank you for
joining us again on Did You Know, the ESCO HVAC
podcast. So today we're spending some time with
Nick Mislak from Danfoss. How are you doing?
I'm doing well, thanks. Thanks for having me.
Oh, no, this is wonderful. We love talking about
technology and innovation, and Danfoss has always
been at the forefront of what's happening with
the next steps in efficiency and technology.
And when we start talking about those changes,
there's a very important process that is happening
within pretty much all sectors of refrigeration.
From the commercial refrigeration, it's trickling
down. We'll talk about some of that at the end
of the show. But the commercial refrigeration
sector, especially with Danfoss, has always been
about performance and efficiencies. And we're
moving into a generation where we're going to
be spending a lot more time talking about vapor
injection and economizers. of the refrigerant.
And to many, it's a new term. So would you mind
kind of starting us from like a thousand foot
and we'll work our way down? Like what is economizing
or economization? Yeah, exactly. So, I mean,
there's a lot of different things when you talk
about economizers, right? You have, you know,
water side economizer, which you would see in,
you know, a free cooling type application for
maybe data centers or things like that. So it
could be, you know, water, glycol, that sort
of thing. And then you move into kind of a rooftop
area where you have, you know, your traditional
air to air side economizer. So, you know, when
the conditions are right and you bring in the
outside air or DOAS units as well, bring the
outside air, you know, conditioned space to get
the humidity and the temperatures down. So you
can take advantage of kind of some free cooling
techniques there. But really what we're talking
about here is the refrigerant side economizer.
So, you know, we're injecting refrigerant, you
know, a vapor or mixture of wet and vapor into
the compressor, you know, through a separate
fitting in the compressor itself to essentially.
you know cool the compressor down but then you
also get some benefits in efficiency and you
know capacity as well okay you know maybe what
we're talking about here as well is a little
more on the vapor side and into the compressor
sure and part of the reason this is becoming
more prevalent now is really compressor design.
You know, if we would have tried dumping additional
refrigerant into the middle of the compression
cycle of a hermetic compress, semi -hermetic
compressor, all we would have done was just change
the pressure. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so these new
compressors, I mean, you know, we can also consider
liquid injection as well because a lot of the
compressors, particularly the ones that we make
here, can do liquid or vapor or mixes. both so
how you want to set the system up basically but
yeah I mean it's a new compressor design which
we're still talking this case you know scroll
compressors mainly for where we are right now
today but you know it's the the internals of
the compressor designed to be able to handle
those you know additional liquid coming in the
compressor additional vapor so you have you know
some more beefier components things like that
that are more geared towards like heat pump applications
so it's kind of an optimized design for heat
pumps yeah it definitely and especially in like
those scroll and sometimes even in the rotary
applications and really the reason we're doing
that is as our as particularly in our scroll
as we're completing that scroll rotation we're
actually closing off the intake side of our compression
process which gives us the ability to to isolate
that compression chamber and so now we can do
some things with that so i mean let's talk about
like the basics of it because it is fairly new
like so what are we doing so probably the most
simple way would be i guess to start because
we're talking if we're talking about injection
and mainly heat pumps and stuff and you know
the kind of the simpler architecture would be
liquid only injection which we've had for kind
of a long time that's kind of where the market
started with heat pumps right in this case you
know you have some you know your expansion valve
electronic expansion valve or solenoid valve
something that's kind of modulating you know
pure liquid flow into the compressor and all
that's really doing is pulling the compressor
down so you're managing your compressor discharge
temperature to basically be with under you know
the acceptable limits for the compressor so that
gives you a larger operating map to be able to
handle you know some of the extreme conditions
that you get for cold climate heat pumps but
it doesn't get you anything as far as you know
increases in capacity or increases in efficiency
it's mainly just to completely manage the compressor
discharge temperature to make sure we ensure
that everything you know works reliable reliable
but we're talking about vapor then we're adding
in extra components right so we're adding an
economizer brace plate or microplate economizer
in most cases again expansion device of some
sort either you know pulse width modulation expansion
valve excuse me, or another EEV. Yeah. So in
this case, we're managing the economizer similarly
as what we kind of manage an evaporator, right?
So we're managing the superheat into the compressor,
basically. And so that's kind of what we're talking
about when we're talking about vapor injection.
So when we do that, you know, we're injecting
the vapor into the compressor, right? So we're,
you know, causing the compressor to do a little
bit less work. So that's giving you some benefits
as far as the capacity goes. but then you know
since we also have an economizer in the mix then
we're getting a little bit you know a benefit
on the sub cooling side into the actual main
evaporators that's kind of where the two benefits
come into play capacity and efficiency and then
you still get the wide operating envelope that
you would have a liquid injection so that's kind
of where we're going today it's more towards
vapor a little bit less towards liquid yeah i
can absolutely see that now are we talking about
just for refrigeration are we talking about uh
air conditioning and you know heat pump applications
Yeah, both really. I mean, so you can take advantage
of the, I mean, if you already have the economizer
built into the system, then you can take advantage
of it across, you know, the whole, you know,
operating envelope of the unit itself to get,
you know, more benefits. So in some cases, even
in cooling only mode, you can get, you know,
better efficiencies, better capacities. But then
for certain on the heat pump side, you know,
there's just no way to get down to these colder
climates. You know, if we go to north, you know,
in Minnesota, Canada, that, you know, we can
never run a heat pump in those conditions, you
know, before. But now we can with vapor injection
included. So, I mean, you get, you know, it's
kind of a dual phase, right? You know, cooling
has benefits, but primarily, you know, the heating
spans the envelope. And that's where we're starting
to really see a push for the market, you know,
systems that want to be cold climate heat pumps
or developments, and they're mostly going towards
the vapor direction. So what circumstances are
we going to be using vapor injection? Like if
we have a compressor that is introduced this
braze plate style heat exchanger with the metering
device to put vapor into the compression cycle,
are we doing it the entire operating range of
the compressor or are we introducing it like
proportioning it into based on temperature? Yeah,
exactly. So depending on the kind of your, you
know, evaporating temperature and your condensing
temperature. So if you're, say you're at a really
high ambient cooling only situation, then it's
not really going to give you a huge benefit to
add, you know, vapor injection to the compressor.
But as you move down to lower evaporating temperatures
where you still need high discharge temperatures
or condensing temperatures, that's when you're
really going to start injecting, you know, vapor
into the compressor. And what really happens
is, you know, kind of the more extreme you go
down, then you inject. you know less and less
vapor and then there becomes a vapor liquid mixture
so you know you're because you still have to
cool the compressor down right so you get to
some point where you have to go from vapor to
liquid or vapor to wet to liquid injection so
that's kind of where you know we've we've designed
our compressor operating maps right so the lower
you go ambient you know so ambient low evaps
you know high condensing that's kind of where
you're going to see you know the main uh you
know mass flow into the compressor And by using
like an electronic expansion valve, something
that you can manage how much you're flowing.
It's not like using a thermostatic expansion
valve that is just going to, you know, proportionate
based on a temperature with that electronic,
you can control how much refrigerant at what
temperatures, whether it's vapor or you can open
up and run liquid, even if need be. Yeah, and
you kind of have to, and that's a good thing
to mention as well. Of course, there's a controls
component as well. You have to have a controller
to manage this injection cycle, right? So it
needs to know how much vapor to inject to manage
that superheat level, but then also when he's
to transition from vapor to more wet to even
to liquid injection based on discharge gas temperature.
So there's for sure a controls component that's
definitely going to be new for a lot of contractors,
installers, a bit more complexity there than
what they're used to. And that's probably the
biggest pushback we get from contractors. And
I know I was one myself. Many contractors like,
why can't we bring back our R12 reciprocating
compressors? Those were easy to work on. Well,
there's a lot of. A lot of factors that are driving
the changes. We've got refrigerant changes. We've
got technology changes. We've even got regulations,
things like technology transition rule and AMAC
that are really forcing changes within the industry.
What trends are you seeing as a manufacturer
that are bringing about these changes in technology
most significantly? Yeah, I mean, a lot of it's
what you mentioned, right? So, I mean, we had
the big transition from, you know, call it the
410A universe over to, you know, where we are
now in the A2Ls in the last year or 2025 anyways.
But we still have some other applications like
data centers that are coming, you know, another
two years later in 2027. So there's all these
refrigeration, you know, trends that are pushing,
you know, GWPs less than 700. So we're going
to see that. And we're also seeing some states,
you know, New York, California, some of the other
states that are pushing for, you know, even lower
GWP levels. Exactly, even faster. yeah even faster
right so it might not be on a federal level but
we see it you know for sure on you know state
to state level or if we talk about like natural
gas bans and things like that then we see that
even more widespread across the us where even
some counties or some districts you know they
may not allow gas gas whatsoever so you know
there goes your gas fired furnaces things like
that so you have to go if you're in a colder
climate zone then you have to go to one of these
low ambient cold you know climate heat pumps
that has you know injection built in essentially
to get the operating envelope for to be able
to run across the entire season so so there's
a lot of stuff there that's coming for sure i
know gwp lens you know they'll continue to be
you know pushed down but we also see you know
creases and proposals for different efficiency
levels for different pieces of equipment so that's
going to continue to kind of happen you know
just depends on the timing and everything set
but All those things pushed together make it
really tough for manufacturers to manage because
they have to do equipment designs all the time,
new certifications, all that stuff. It becomes
quite a bit of a challenge and adds this extra
level of complexity to everybody's daily life,
so to speak. Yeah, and I think why that's important
for us to have this conversation because we do
get contractors saying, well, Our manufacturers
are just forcing us to go with this new technology
because they need to make something new. And
that's not at all the case. It really comes down
to, as a manufacturer, I would want to make something
that was the simplest to build and last the longest.
I mean, that's just a general manufacturing standard.
So the manufacturers are being forced to make
changes and come up with new technologies and
ways to make existing technologies more efficient
because of a lot of regulation. But there is
a lot of benefits to it. And as technicians and
as contractors, we just have to learn. And that's
why we work closely with our manufacturers like
yourself to be able to get the education and
information out in front of these transitions.
So it's not a difficult. change when we started
being introduced to this technologies. So what
would Dan Foss like for contractors and technicians
to understand as we move into things like vapor
injection and liquid injection? Yeah. I mean,
so we've done a lot, right. Cause even the transition
from, you know, A1 refrigerants that aren't flammable
to A2L is came with its own challenge, right.
Not only for, you know, for OEMs and manufacturers
and, you know. companies like such as Danfoss,
but for installers too, right? Because they're
not used to dealing with any refrigerants that
are flammable at all, right? So in that case,
they have to make sure they service the system
properly, that they don't cause any sparks, things
like that. But then there's also additional components
like... gas detection sensors that weren't there
before for you know refrigerant systems that
they're used to so there there's that level of
complexity itself that just came you know naturally
because of the the gwp uh you know dropped to
700 so that's kind of phase one i think and i
think contractors are really starting to you
know they're learning it now right but there
is you know a lot of you know maybe not initial
pushback but for sure a lot of new learnings
that came about that from the systems but yeah
as we move towards which you know extra level
complexity which is the heat pumps which you
know traditionally you know a lot of systems
had you know heat pump that would run in some
climates then you have gas heater natural gas
or whatever to switch over to kind of a second
source but in some cases now that's not going
to happen right it's going to be a heat pump
or for nothing essentially so then then it's
really essential to make sure that when they're
you know when they're servicing the system that
they're you know checking the refrigerant charge
checking the sub cooling making sure the components
are all you know operating correctly going through
all the controls because otherwise you know it's
going to be a nightmare for contractors right
so it's going to be a lot of new learnings that
happen and for danfoss you know we try to do
you know a lot of these webinars things like
that to get our you know get the voice out there
we meet with a lot of contractors distributors
we have a you know a good pretty good um kind
of portfolio of software with our cool selector
program where they can go in and see kind of
how the systems are built we have component recommendations
for you know economizers valves for new systems
but you know they could also you know look and
see how the systems are you know piped together
and all that stuff in there you kind of see how
it all works together so i think we're you know
we're trying to do a lot to kind of educate the
industry there yeah and i really i really am
grateful for the opportunity because there's
a We've been calling it an evolution of education
here at ESCO because of these changes. And we've
seen a outreach from the manufacturers and because
Dan Foss is a manufacturer, but you're also a
distributor for equipment manufacturers. So you're
playing a couple of parts, right? So you're trying
to educate the equipment manufacturers on what
products and what applications work. the best.
Then you're also trying to help the contractor
and the technicians understand that component
of the entire product. And it's a lot. It's a
lot of education and training to get out there.
But we have seen that this year in particular.
We've seen our component manufacturers and our
equipment manufacturers being very diligent about
getting the information and the education out
to the industry. At least I feel that that's
the way that we're going to be successful in
these transitions. Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's
the only way it's going to work, right? Because,
I mean, we can't, you know, we can supply the
components and, you know, educate how to set
the system up and go over the controls and all
those things. But once the unit is sold from,
you know, whoever to, you know, a distributor
or installer or contractor, then, you know, they
need to know how to run the system, right? How
to do the startup, how to do the service on it
and all that kind of things. Otherwise, it's
going to become, you know, a nightmare for everybody,
basically. You know, it's going to be, you know
parts that are no fault found systems that aren't
operating correctly that become then less efficient
than systems that we already have today so you
know there's a there's a lot of pieces of the
puzzle that kind of have to come together to
make sure all you know these systems are set
up correctly yeah exactly that's a You hit on
something that's a very significant part of our
industry. Technicians and contractors often wonder,
well, why do these prices keep escalating? And
one of the things that I have seen by going to
a variety of different compressor manufacturers
is a significant amount of compressors that come
back under warranty or under replacement are
of no fault found, indicating that there were
other things happening within the system that
was causing a scenario that the technician would
witnessed and they jumped to a conclusion of
say a compressor being bad. And so understanding
that sequence of operation, it's so important.
We did an electrical sequence of operation show
on our live show last week. And that's what we're
doing is just helping people understand an electrical
sequence of operation. Because when we start
looking at our modern refrigeration circuit,
there is a significant amount of electrical sequence
of operation going into it as well. Think about
this economizer product, a brace plate heat exchanger
with a metering device. It's an electronic expansion
valve. So realistically, we're going to have
two electronic expansion valves. If it's a heat
pump, potentially three that we're going to need
to understand how. they operate and their importance
within the system as well as the troubleshooting
absolutely yeah yeah i mean the complexity of
systems from you know now to 10 years ago is
i mean it's it's so you know exponentially higher
than it was you know we have variable speed fans
instead of fixed speeds fixed being you know
went from mechanical to electrical expansion
valves you know all these different new new components
and you know it's as you mentioned you know the
controls point or uh portion is is the key right
because we don't want to become we don't want
tech technicians to become just part changers
right i mean they're going to have to do some
diagnostics to figure out kind of what's working
what's not working before you know they just
start to you know kind of pulling pieces out
and putting new pieces in so there's a lot of
you know a lot of things that need to happen
there as far as the training goes i know there's
a lot of organizations as well that do a lot
of that training that are you know kind of keeping
the industry but I mean, there's going to always
be some challenges from some of the, you know,
the really small OEMs that just don't have, or
the contractors and installers that just don't
have the kind of the bandwidth to do these, you
know, large scale training programs. So I think
that's going to be key to kind of making this
heat pump transition, you know, a big success
in the future. So I think we still have a ways
to go because it's, you know, it's a, heat pumps
aren't new, right? But they're new in cold climates
for most of contractors today. I agree. That's
why we've been doing these short, you know, 20
minute or so podcast. And we hope that Dan Foss
comes back and does some troubleshooting diagnostic
classes with us, because this is the point. The
technician in between jobs typically has about
20 minutes, 20 to 30 minutes in between calls.
And we can start getting the information out
there in bite sized chunks, helping them make
this transition possible one road trip at a time,
all at a time. I think we'll get through it comfortably
because even myself as a technician, I have been
exploring the different products that vapor injection
and liquid injection are going into. Can you
tell me, like, are we going to see this in all
refrigeration products and all HVAC products
going forward? Is it a matter of time? Potentially.
So it's for sure, cold climate heat pumps, that's
a given, right? It's going to be there. There's
just no way to get to, you know, these operating
conditions that we need without vapor injection
or liquid injection. So that's for sure going
to happen. I think we're going to see it in some
cases for cooling, maybe cooling only applications
where, okay, say the OEM already has a system
designed, but then the government changes an
efficiency metric and increases, you know, full
load or part load, something like that. And then
they can potentially maybe add, you know, vapor
injection you know called subsystem into the
unit and then get maybe where they need to go
to meet the next rating level for so i think
we may see some of that there um i think we're
also going to see some systems that okay i know
em builds you know any cooling only unit or heat
pump unit so it's kind of going to be a mix and
match type solution so i think we'll see you
know some compressors that you know maybe they
build a system that has a compressor that's set
up for vapor injection but then they don't use
it right so they just have the port that's closed
off so right i think we'll see in some cases
where that happens too In refrigeration, we're
going to see it for low temp refrigeration applications
pay too well. So that's going to be out there.
So, I mean, it's going to be pretty much, it's
going to be all over the place, right? But it's
for sure not something that it's going to be,
you know, seeing less in the market. It's only
going to be more and more common. I mean, it's
already out there quite a bit, right? If you
look at, you know, large chillers, things like
that, they already have economized systems on
there. So that's already there today. but now
we're really starting to transition into rooftops
you know residential units a lot of areas where
we just typically didn't see that before so i
think that's going to be where the main push
comes from Yeah, I've been exploring the different
products in the residential realm because I've
seen a lot of them in that high performance heat
pump for commercial applications where Danfoss
plays a major role. And so I was exploring like
in the residential, how many offerings do we
have? And so I actually just completed a couple
of weeks ago installation of a cold climate ductless
heat pump for an application for myself. To compare
the difference between a standard operating refrigeration
system and one that uses vapor injection, many
ductless units will only go down to about 5 degrees
Fahrenheit. A traditional refrigeration system,
about 5 degrees Fahrenheit, and many of them
have hard lockouts at 5 degrees because they
just can't handle the compressor envelope. It
just isn't designed for it. So with this particular
application, this was a 12 ,000 BTU ductless
heat pump that because of the technology itself
has 100 % capacity at five degrees, but then
starts introducing the vapor injection and actually
has 100 % capacity at minus five degrees and
still has capacity down to minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit.
That's unheard of. Yeah, I mean, that's where
we are now with our technology. And in fact,
some of the compressors we have, they'll run
down to about minus 40 evaporating. So depending
on what your, you know, the T is, you could be
maybe even run down to minus 30 degrees Fahrenheit,
something like that. So that's what we're talking
about. Yeah, it's crazy. So you can service most
of the, you know, Canada, you know, northern
parts of North America. So, yeah, I mean, that's
really where we're getting. The main challenge
when you get those cold climates then becomes
the defrost, right? Right. you know that's that's
kind of where the main drawback is but um yeah
for sure the compressors the map is so wide that
these things can operate you know almost everywhere
now um yeah i've been seeing commercial refrigeration
or commercial heat pumps installed in alaska
yeah and if they can work there they can work
anywhere yeah and a lot of it came from uh as
well from the the department of energy had some
challenges right for cold climate heat pumps
for residential units comes also so it's kind
of really pushing a lot of these oems to see
okay how low can we go and then okay what's going
to be you know acceptable to the market you know
as well so um because you know there's of course
some you know some cost tradebacks from a heat
pump versus you know you know furnace and other
technologies as well so you bet i think i think
a lot of that's the market still trying to figure
out for sure kind of see you know how do we differentiate
our product our product do we have you know a
heat pump and then a second tier two or would
be a cold climate heat pump and then maybe we
have another that's a heat pump with a hybrid
you know backup source of heat so there's a lot
of a lot of ways now to differentiate differentiated
products well nick where can we learn more about
dan foss especially in the economizing and the
low temp vapor injection applications Yeah. You
can probably find anything on Google nowadays
or through AI, for sure, any web -based stuff.
As I mentioned, we have a selection program called
CoolSelector that's free to download. You just
type it in, it'll pop right up. Then you can
select whatever compressor that you want and
it'll pull up the application guidelines and
it'll go through, of course, all the performance
information that's needed, but it'll also show
you the system architecture, so how the components
are piped together. what heat exchangers, what
valves we recommend for what compressors, you
know, kind of all that stuff that you need as
well. So that's a really good resource and that's
free. Anybody can download it. LinkedIn, of course,
we have, you know, lots of podcasts and things
like that for day projection. I'm sure we'll
probably have many, many more as the years go
on to kind of introduce everybody in more detail.
But yeah, I think we try to do our best to get
the message out to the market. So looking forward
to just kind of building on that and keeping
it going in the future. Awesome. Well, Nick Mislak,
I really appreciate you joining us. I think we're
going to have to call this podcast. How low can
we go? Well, thank you so much. And you have
a wonderful day. We appreciate you joining. Appreciate
it. Thank you very much.