Natural refrigerants in food retail-An overview of market, technology and policy trends in North America, Europe, China & Japan.

The paper provides a comprehensive overview of the use of natural refrigerants, with a specific focus on CO2 and hydrocarbon-based technology, in different world regions and more specifically in Europe, North America, Japan and China. Europe is a leader when it comes to natural refrigerant use in food retail, with close to 3,000 CO2 transcritical stores in 2013. This trend is expected to continue with stringent f-gas regulatory requirements coming in effect at EU level as of 2015. Japan looks at becoming the second leading region with more than 600 CO2-only installations expected by March 2015. In North America and China the potential for CO2 stores is largely untapped, nevertheless accelerated adoption of the technology is expected as the regulatory environment changes, components become more available in domestic markets and overall system costs decrease.