TEWI analysis of a stand-alone refrigeration system using low-GWP fluids with leakage ratio consideration

Abstract

Abstract In few years, stand-alone systems will rely on low-GWP refrigerants in order to reduce their direct impact, which agrees with the recent regulations and standards. However, the energy performance of the system is dependent on the refrigerant charge and thus on their annual leakage ratio. The leakage effect is not considered in the suggested methods to evaluate the environmental impact and requires an in deep analysis. We aim to extend the TEWI analysis of stand-alone refrigeration systems by considering a realistic evolution of their charge during its lifetime and to quantify the discrepancies of the classical methodology. For that, the performance of a stand-alone cabinet (four low-GWP refrigerants) has been considered as reference. It has been concluded that leakage consideration makes classical TEWI to underestimate emissions for any country, refrigerant or annual leakage ratio, up to 20% in this study. Deviation increases with higher leakage ratio, but especially for those values that do not imply a refilling during the lifetime of the system. Deviations are higher as mass and energy spans of the systems are.