ATMO America: Copeland Prioritizing CO₂ Refrigeration Adoption in North America, Says Director of Solutions Strategy

With a collaborative CO₂ (R744) lab and openly available studies and educational papers, Copeland is prioritizing the adoption of CO₂ refrigeration in North America, according to Andre Patenaude, the company’s Director of Solutions Strategy.

Patenaude outlined the American components manufacturer’s natural refrigerant stewardship efforts in a presentation at ATMO America 2025. The event was organized by ATMOsphere, publisher of NaturalRefrigerants.com, and held June 11‒12 in Atlanta.

“In the two years since our CO₂ scroll lab opened, we’ve engaged with over 60 companies to develop different energy-saving strategies,” Patenaude said. “Our E360 Resource Hub features free content we’ve developed for the industry, including case studies, upcoming regulations, incentives and more.”

Copeland manufactures a variety of products for commercial and industrial applications, including CO₂ compressors and controls, small-scale propane (R290) compressors and industrial-sized Vilter-brand ammonia (R717) compressors.

Ohio facility: The CO₂ retail lab in Sidney features a retail refrigeration system with a medium-temperature cooling capacity of 360,000BTU (105.5kW/30TR) and 120,000BTU (35kW/10TR) low-temperature (LT) capacity, supporting 18 display cases, a walk-in cooler and a walk-in freezer.

• The design isolates and tests different technologies, with the ability to simulate ambient conditions in 13 climate zones.
• It includes electric and hot gas defrost, parallel compressors, mechanical subcooling, ejectors, heat exchangers, an air direct heat reclaim coil and three options for gas cooling: adiabatic, dry and water.

Put to the test: Patenaude shared results from tests conducted at the facility involving parallel compression and evaporator defrost.

• To increase efficiency in high ambient conditions, transcritical CO₂ systems often contain two parallel compressors, with the larger lead compressor operating with a variable speed drive and the smaller one with a fixed speed drive.
• “By adding a variable speed drive on the smaller compressor, we get more hours of operation and practically double the energy savings from parallel compression,” Patenaude said.
• During evaporator defrost testing of a 12ft (3.7m) LT island, it took 25 minutes for hot gas CO₂ defrost to free the coil compared to 45 minutes for electric defrost. “With CO₂’s heat content, we are going to start seeing a lot more applications of hot gas defrost,” Patenaude noted.

Educational resources: Working in partnership with contractors, non-profits and other manufacturers, Copeland has developed numerous case studies and white papers to answer questions to help retailers adopt CO₂ solutions.

• In its first case study, Copeland partnered with Cushing Terrell, Hussmann, AAA Refrigeration Systems and CoolSys to determine the total cost of ownership of a CO₂ system over 20 years in eight different architectures.
• The company’s latest white paper, released in May 2025, provides a guide to help smaller retailers find ways to make CO₂ refrigeration more affordable by highlighting options like California’s F-gas Reduction Incentive Program and offsetting costs through carbon credits.
• As part of a broader industry collaboration, Copeland also partners with the North American Sustainable Refrigeration Council to support the training of qualified technicians and break down barriers to the adoption of CO₂.

Quotable: “Our approach to market trends comes from a stewardship perspective,” Patenaude said. “Engaging in partnerships will increase the industry’s comfort level with CO₂ and accelerate contractor learning.”

“Engaging in partnerships will increase the industry’s comfort level with CO₂ and accelerate contractor learning.”

Andre Patenaude, Director of Solutions Strategy at Copeland