This year Carel really wanted to up the ante. With a 50 per cent increase in space including more meeting table space Carel Australia managing director, Kevin Marr, said the company went all out at ARBS in order to engage with its audience.
“The larger space was required to showcase all our new high efficiency solutions as well as giving a larger area for our sales team to sit with the increased number of visitors to enable us to discuss their requirements ” he said.
“At Carel we focus on solutions, not products.”
But there was one piece of technology that drew the crowds: Carel’s HEOS high energy-efficiency waterloop system, which won the 2016 AHR Expo Innovation Award in Orlando, the refrigeration industry’s most prestigious innovation award.
Designed for use in refrigerated cases and cold rooms for the food retail industry, the HEOS can replace the classic architecture of a compressor rack.
"In a normal refrigeration system there is a central plant rack system and a plant room that's pumping refrigerant around the
supermarket," Marr said. "Because it is field installed, there tends to be a lot of leaks in the system which impacts on the environment so it isn't energy efficient at all.
"We address all of these problems with a DC inverter and DC compressor which provides cooling, and we're rejecting the heat into a waterloop system. That's just using a simple piece of equipment on the roof with a dry cooler rejecting the heat.
“There are clear environmental and economic benefits that accompany this award-winning system," Marr said. "It provides energy efficiency (25 per cent), improved temperature control, fast installation and flexible design.
“Moreover, compared to traditional architecture with compressor racks, there is a drastic reduction in total refrigerant charge (-80 per cent) and refrigerant leaks (-96 per cent).”
Ease of installation is also a major concern for Carel, who develops simulators and control units to help install the hardware.
“We’ve seen that the R&D departments of our customers are really stressed. They’ve got so many projects. They don’t have the resources to do everything, so what we’ve done is tested the technology,” Marr said. “We’ve developed a prototype box that we can send to the customer and they can use that as a proof of concept and then improve it because it’s not optimised for production.”
Also on display at ARBS was the company’s air handler simulator, demonstrating all the technology of evaporative cooling but applying it in a very efficient way. “We’re using technology from our humidification products, with a very fine mist spraying system,” he said. “We’re putting into an air handler direct and using indirect evaporative cooling."
Carel’s EVD Ice electronic valve driver, developed to operate in extreme conditions directly inside the cold room evaporator, was also attracting a lot of attention.
Using expansion valves, the innovative system can provide energy savings of up to 30 per cent."The benefits of expansion valves are well known by the industry, and you're in good control with a fast cooldown," Marr said.
"We can offer the benefits of our expansion valve fitted in the evaporator, plug and play, ready to go. Interest is really high. It's a game changer."
For more information on Carel, visit www.carel.com/carel-australia.