Trying to tame the energy costs in a supermarket becomes more and more critical every year as store owners try to show their greenness to environmentally conscious customers and also continue to try to meet stricter efficiency regulations.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced that as of early August, it had quadrupled the number of participants in its voluntary program designed to reduce the use of ozone-depleting refrigerants in the nation’s grocery stores - the GreenChill Advanced Refrigeration Partnership.
So just when was it that the phrase ‘global warming’ went out of vogue and ‘climate change’ became the ‘in’ term? More and more I hear ‘climate change’ being used.
Contractors are notorious weather watchers. Hot waves or cold spells could mean stepped-up work to keep air conditioners and furnaces up and running. Yet, I have always had a problem when it comes to weather forecasts: I don’t trust them, whether they are 90 days ahead, two days from now, or two hours from now.
A record number of students - 5,411 - took part in some 91 events at the 45th annual Skills USA National Leadership and Skills Conference in Kansas City, Mo. Included were more than 50 students in the Heating, Ventilation, Air Conditioning & Refrigeration event.
When supermarket engineers, contractors, and technicians gather in Palm Springs, Calif., this Sept. 13-16 for the annual Food Marketing Institute Energy & Technical Services Conference, they will discover that much has changed in their industry since they last met a year ago. In fact some of that change may be going on right up until the presentations by a number of the speakers.
All of the training that service techs do and all of the cost that manufacturers put into R&D may mean little according to a two-page advertisement in a recent issue of one of those Sunday newspaper inserts.
Awareness of the phaseout of R-22 and acceptance of R-410A as the new air conditioning refrigerant of choice appear to being gaining increasing attention among contractors. Both a survey taken by The NEWS earlier in the year and recent anecdotal information show that contractors are talking with their customers about both R-22 supply issues and R-410A equipment.