Commercial refrigeration systems are notoriously leaky. According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA’s) GreenChill program, the typical GreenChill program, the typical supermarket has an annual leak rate of about 25%, and the average store contains about 3,500 pounds of refrigerant. This translates into being a large financial and operational burden for food retailers, especially as the cost of refrigerants continues to increase due to the HFC phasedown.
The North American Sustainable Refrigeration Council (NASRC) hopes to solve this problem through its leak reduction initiative, which is being spearheaded by a group of its retailer-members. Under this initiative, retailers identified the top leak issues in refrigeration equipment and developed specific equipment specifications that could help mitigate those leaks. In a recent webinar, NASRC detailed its findings, which included calling on OEMs to make six improvements to their equipment in order to reduce leaks.