Energy and efficiency comparison between standardized HFC and CO2 transcritical systems for supermarket applications.

Within the last five years, over a 1000 transcritical CO2 systems have reportedly been installed mainly in Europe for supermarket applications. Many publications have addressed efficiency and the ecological impact by comparing the total equivalent warming impact (TEWI) between different systems - most often HFC and CO2 systems. However, the basis for these reports are mainly based on simulations associated with assumptions and pending validation. This paper first provides a modeled sensitivity study on influencing parameters with respect to the efficiency and the capacity of these systems, and then compares real market performance data with the simulated values, enabling a comprehensive comparison of transcritical CO2 systems with hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) systems.