The road towards zero impact: the conclusive data of the life C4R programme

The rapid reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in the refrigeration sector is now more than ever considered an epochal challenge, following the Agreement of Paris and the Kigali Amendment, at world level, and the European Green Deal. A “test” which offers players of the sector important opportunities to promote the spread of sustainable technologies, able to combat climate change.

In this context, Epta launched the Life-C4R project in 2018. This initiative, part of the Life Programme and co-financed by the European Union, is a valid tool to accelerate the implementation of high efficiency CO2 commercial refrigeration systems. During the three years of the plan numerous analyses were conducted on the seven pilot installations in Italy, Spain and Romania, with the contribution of Epta, Iberia and DAAS. The results have confirmed how FTE 2.0 (Full transcritical efficiency) and ETE (Extreme Temperature Efficiency) allow to effectively replace HFC hydrofluorocarbons with very simple transcritical CO2 systems. The numerous advantages include:

• significant energy saving, in any Country and regardless of external temperature,
•  lower installation costs,
•  lower maintenance costs.

Verifications were carried out on the pilot projects for more than a year, to prove their reliability, assess the performance of operation and consumption in every season. Specifically, the studies conducted show that the Epta technologies used in the scope of the Life-C4R guarantee an annual reduction of between 15% and 23% in energy consumption (if compared with traditional CO2 systems). Furthermore, to monitor and assess the global carbon footprint of its innovations, Epta has carried out an analysis of the entire life cycle of the greenhouse emissions of the Life-C4R technologies according to the LCCP (Life Cycle Climate Performance) standards. The data show that the use of Epta solutions can reduce the overall CO2 emissions by up to 20%.

Sustainable systems like those protagonists of the Life-C4R offer the possibility to launch a structural retrofit programme of existing stores, to replace the old generation commercial refrigeration systems with modern technologies, thereby aligning this sector with the objectives of European climate neutrality of 2050.