Experimental investigation on the integration of cold energy storage into a R744 refrigeration system

In this paper, an experimental study on the efficient integration of cold storage (CTES) unit into a R744 refrigeration system for food storage in supermarket cabinets is presented. The main idea is to make use of the free space located at the top of the cabinet to place the cold storage. For this purpose, the cold discharging process is a zero energy consumption and only operates using the CO2 thermosyphon effect. In this work, the CTES is a tube-in-tank storage unit where water is used as a latent storage medium. It is connected from one side to the CO2 transcritical facility to ensure the cold charging process, and from the other side to a glycol loop through a double-pipe heat exchanger to simulate the supermarket cabinets’ load during the cold discharging process. The optimal operating conditions that ensures the thermosyphon process were identified as being a wider pressure range, and a higher heat load applied to the evaporator.

R. I. Mancescu, Y. Allouche, A. Larrañaga Janeiro, and others. Experimental investigation on the integration of cold energy storage into a R744 refrigeration system. Proceedings of the 25th IIR International Congress of Refrigeration, -, 2019.
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