Winners Announced for Lower GWP Refrigeration, Air-Conditioning Innovation Awards

ASHRAE and UN Environment Programme have announced the project selections for the 2023 ASHRAE-UNEP OzonAction Lower-GWP Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Innovation Awards. The annual international award program promotes innovative design, research and practice by recognizing people who have developed or implemented technological concepts applied in developing countries to promote lower global warming potential refrigerants through refrigeration and air-conditioning applications.

The projects in each category were selected based on delivering solutions to meet refrigeration and air-conditioning needs by using lower-GWP technologies. The selection criteria included:

• Extent of need
• Innovative aspects in transforming conventional practices
• Technical replicability to developing countries

Judges also accounted for economic feasibility when possible, considering that growing acceptance of new technologies will favorably influence cost and availability.

Four projects were selected, all in the Commercial/Industrial Applications category:

• HC-290 (Propane) as an Alternative Refrigerant in Commercial Applications (Ecuador)

Project Team: Rodrigo Serpa, Fernando Del Castillo, Omarly Acevedo and Ana Correa

This cold store project used HC-290 as an alternative refrigerant in commercial applications. The project resulted in a 36% reduction in energy consumption and a 41% decrease in total equivalent CO2 emissions.

• Flammable Refrigerant Use in a Draft Beer Machine (Brazil)

Project Team: Eduardo Arjona Esteves, Lucas Cavalin, David Marcussi, Davi Telles and Roberto Cavalin

This project developed a new heat exchanger composition for draft beer machines, allowing the use of flammable refrigerants and improving cooling efficiency.

• Ammonia Use in Multipurpose Cold Storage (India)

Project Team: Harshal Surange and Arvind Surange

The multipurpose cold storage project utilized a low-charge DX ammonia system with air-cooled condensers and electronic expansion valves, a first of its kind in India.

• Propane Chiller Use in a Convenience Store (Brazil)

Project Team: Fernando Sayols Marchioro, Éder Paluch and Elielton Polityto

The project involves the development of a modular low-charge refrigerant chiller using propane as an HCFC replacement in commercial facilities in Brazil.

The selected projects were announced at the 2023 ASHRAE Annual Conference in Tampa, Florida. Selected project teams will be recognized with the awarding of certificates at UNEP events held in the regions or countries of the projects.

For more details, visit ashrae.org/ashrae-unep-portal.