Not-in-kind approach to remote monitoring in CO2 refrigeration systems.

The complexity of CO2 layouts for commercial refrigeration installed in warm climates, integrating also air conditioning and heating, with different load ratios, poses challenges in evaluating and comparing energy performances. Both analysis based on first or second law of thermodynamics requires the measurement of refrigerant mass flow rate to straight forward evaluate useful effects. A low-cost, reliable and low intrusive option to measure CO2 volume flow will be illustrated, demonstrating the use of not-in-kind sensors in commercial refrigeration systems. Signals coming from the field might be used to evaluate the system performance, i.e. Coefficient of Performance and exergetic efficiency, and potentially to promptly identify anomalous working conditions leading to inefficient operations or failure. Field data will validate the possibility of identifying the system performance and its health status using a limited amount of signals and filtering them through proper figures.