As natural refrigerant-based industrial systems continue to gain a foothold in Mexico, Green NatRef Mexico, a marketing and consulting organization launched in January, is offering a comprehensive program to help industrial operators overcome obstacles to adopting these systems.
Green NatRef Mexico is affiliated with Ice-Square (for which Rios is a consultant), a manufacturer of natural refrigerant-based systems based in Cuautitlán Izcalli, Mexico; SRT (for which he is Head of Natural Refrigerants), a contractor also based in Cuautitlán Izcalli; and CO2 Training Center Mexico (for which he is a coordinator), located in Tepotzotlán, Mexico.
Green NatRef Mexico’s role is to work with clients to “specify” a project’s technology and refrigerant, and then turn it over to Ice-Square, SRT and the training center, explained Fernando Rios, Head of New Business for Green NatRef Mexico. “We don’t handle any projects with HFCs or HFOs, only natural refrigerants like CO2 [R744], ammonia [R717] and propane [R290].” He spoke to NaturalRefrigerants.com at the 16th IIR-Gustav Lorentzen Conference on Natural Refrigerants, held August 12–14 at the University of Maryland.
“We’re trying to offer all of the solution so the client doesn’t have excuses,” said Rios. “They can’t say, ‘I don’t have any training’ or ‘You don’t have the infrastructure.’ The idea is to have all of that covered. We have the manufacturing, the contractor, the trainer. We have the aftermarket stock for replacement parts – compressors or valves.” Other OEMs could be used, but Ice-Square is the primary option.
Not only does Green NatRef Mexico provide technicians qualified to work with natural refrigerants, it also offers to certify a client’s own people. “The idea is they don’t have to depend on us,” said Rios.
Most of the projects are industrial, including freezers, chillers, condensing units and heat pumps, though some may include installing heat pumps in hotels. Supermarket warehouses are clients, but stores are not.
Propane chiller for Grupo Bimbo
The first project facilitated by Green NatRef Mexico is with a Mexico City bread factory operated by Grupo Bimbo, a Mexican multinational food company. For this project, a propane-based 15kW (4.3TR) chiller was installed to provide temperatures from 0 to 4°C (32 to 39°F) via a glycol secondary loop for a storage room. The chiller will begin operating in September, said Rios.
Last year Grupo Bimbo reported that natural refrigerants represent over 60% of the total refrigerant charge at its more than 200 bakery processing plants across 34 countries; more than 10% of its sites were fully running natural refrigerant technologies, with an additional 10% to be added by the end of 2023. The company said that for chillers, which are common features in its bakeries, it is implementing CO2 and propane-based systems. In the freezing part of its operation, it is adopting CO2 and ammonia/CO2 cascade systems.
“They have residential buildings near [the Mexico City] facility, so it’s not easy to have ammonia,” said Rios. “Right now we go with CO2, or we go with propane.”
The Grupo Bimbo project is not the first involving natural refrigerants for Ice-Square and SRT, whose websites tout their work with natural refrigerant systems. Rios described one installation of a 352kW (100TR) ammonia/CO2 cascade system for freezing bread at −40°C (−40°F). At another facility operated by gourmet food and cheese importer Mexideli, SRT installed a CO2 chiller made by Ice-Square that provides air-conditioning and CO2 racks from Hillphoenix that deliver low-temperature refrigeration and heat reclaim for space heating in the winter.
In its CO2 projects, SRT works with stainless-steel tubing, using orbital machines to “make the welding perfect,” said Rios. As a result, there have been no leaks over four years in the Mexideli system, which includes 2km (6,562ft) of tubes and 38 evaporators.
He acknowledged that CO2 can be less efficient in Mexico’s high ambient temperatures, though ejectors are starting to be used to improve the efficiency.
Transcritical CO2-based refrigeration systems have been found to be up to 18.6% more efficient than R404A alternatives in hot climates like Monterrey, Mexico, according to Güntner, a German manufacturer of heat exchangers and cooling systems While the company found that a R404A-based system marginally outperformed a transcritical CO2 rack with adiabatic cooling and parallel compression in ambient temperatures of 21–27°C (69.8–80.6°F), R744 was significantly more efficient in ambient temperatures up to 20°C (68°F) and above 28°C (82.4°F).
While Green NatRef Mexico is focused primarily on Mexico, it has ventured into Central and South America as well. As a developing country, without pressing f-gas restrictions to date, Mexico can be a challenging place to sell natural refrigerant systems, acknowledged Rios. As a result, he focuses on transnational companies like Grupo Bimbo and Nestlé that are accustomed to the progressive refrigerant policies implemented in Europe.
And while Mexican national companies are harder to crack, “it’s not impossible,” Rios said. Hotels, for example, are seeing the emissions-cutting advantage of using a CO2 system for heating water rather than a boiler.
“We’re trying to offer all of the solution so the client doesn’t have excuses.”
Fernando Rios, Head of New Business for Green NatRef Mexico
