By Keilly Witman KW Refrigerant Management Strategy LLC This is the first article in a three-part series on sustainability and refrigerants. In this day and age, most supermarket companies recognize that their customers care about the environment and their communities. Customers want to spend their money at businesses that share those values. They want to feel good about where they [...]
By Derek Gosselin Hillphoenix Systems Product Manager Using carbon dioxide as a refrigerant seems like a new solution to today’s challenge of lowering the global warming potential of commercial refrigeration systems. But, as industry researcher James M. Calm has documented, the use of CO2 as a refrigerant actually stretches back to 1866. In subsequent decades CO2, ammonia and other early [...]
By Derek Gosselin Hillphoenix Systems Product Manager Today’s grocery shoppers demand more fresh offerings — from cut fruit to prepared meals — and this changes the profitability equation for supermarkets. Fresh sells, but as perishables become a larger percentage of a store’s mix, it’s essential to extend how long those products are fit for sale. That’s why grocers are adding [...]
Hillphoenix congratulates all the 2015 GreenChill Environmental Achievement Award recipients who, along with Hillphoenix, were recognized by EPA Greenchill at the GreenChill Partnership’s annual Achievement Awards on September 29. Hillphoenix, a pioneer in designing environmentally sustainable refrigeration systems, received a 2014-2015 Achievement Award – Store Certification Excellence from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s GreenChill Partnership program. It’s the company’s fifth GreenChill [...]
EPA’s SNAP Phaseout Schedule for Alternative Refrigerants The wait is over. Food retailers and the refrigeration industry were in a holding pattern for months while the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considered its next move on alternative refrigerants. Then, in mid-July, a 90-page ruling published in the Federal Register (pp. 42870-42959) confirmed what Hillphoenix and other industry experts had anticipated: Widely [...]
Over the past several years, some notable trends have brought changes to the retail refrigeration space. Grocery stores are getting smaller, fresh-food options are gaining ground at retailers of every size, and ozone-depleting refrigerants continue to be pushed out by natural and sustainable options. At the spot where small-format, fresh-format, and sustainability converge, retailers may find themselves in unfamiliar territory [...]
Last month, we discussed the lack of effective performance baselines for natural refrigeration systems and how that makes it difficult for utilities to provide natural refrigeration incentives. In this article, we’ll talk about the second challenge faced by end users and utilities: the lack of good modeling software for natural refrigeration systems. When seeking incentives from utilities for natural refrigeration, [...]
By Keilly Witman KW Refrigerant Management Strategy LLC The fundamental difficulty with the opportunity to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is that, for most utilities in the country, greenhouse gas emissions in and of themselves are irrelevant. Most of the world’s population thinks that energy use and greenhouse gas emissions are one and the same, but utilities are well aware that [...]
By Keilly Witman KW Refrigerant Management Strategy LLC Much has been written over the past few months about the potential for utility incentives based on natural refrigerant use in supermarkets. The word “potential,” as well as the nature of the articles, suggests that utility incentives for naturals are a thing of the future. Not so! There are plenty of examples [...]
Hillphoenix, a pioneer in designing environmentally sustainable refrigeration systems, now brings HFC-free refrigeration to small and medium-sized retailers. The company’s new AdvansorFlex CO2 refrigeration system delivers all the benefits of natural CO2 refrigeration in a compact and scalable format that is perfect for stores of every size. As part of the evolving Advansor CO2 platform, AdvansorFlex is an environmentally sustainable [...]
