The North American Sustainable Refrigeration Council (NASRC) has announced that it will expand its offerings to include private, on-demand training and that it will host one of its Natural Refrigerant Training Summits in the Pacific Northwest for the first time.
The on-demand training will be led by Rusty Walker, the California-based nonprofit’s Training Director, at the company’s location and will be customizable. The NASRC said the on-demand program was rolled out in response to “increasing demand for year-round refrigeration training.”
In November 2024, the NASRC will bring its Natural Refrigerant Training Summit to the Pacific Northwest. Through its free training program, the NASRC aims to provide industry technicians with the opportunity to become more familiar with the latest natural refrigerant technologies.
Danielle Wright, Executive Director of the NASRC, told NaturalRefrigerants.com at the organization’s Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, training summit in March that the event would be held in Seattle, Washington.
“We’re excited to continue building on this momentum as we scale the program to support refrigeration technicians in every corner of the country,” said Morgan Smith, Senior Director of NASRC. “We’re incredibly grateful to the entire refrigeration industry for rallying together to accelerate training offerings for technicians.”
Since April 2023, the NASRC has hosted four Natural Refrigerant Training Summits – two in Irwindale, California, one in Pittsburgh and one in St. Louis, Missouri – attracting more than 1,600 attendees in total. Over 900 of the summit participants were technicians, while 370 were HVAC&R students and teachers.
Its most recent summit took place in Irwindale in May 2024. It was co-hosted by utility provider Southern California Edison and featured comprehensive training on CO₂ (R744)- and propane (R290)-based technologies from leading industry experts and manufacturers, including Copeland, Hillphoenix and Kysor Warren Epta US.
“We’re excited to continue building on this momentum as we scale the program to support refrigeration technicians in every corner of the country.”
Morgan Smith, NASRC
Workforce development
With the main objective of expanding the adoption of natural refrigerants in U.S. supermarkets, the NASRC focuses heavily on activities that will grow the commercial refrigeration technician workforce.
Its 2023 Workforce Development Assessment found that the nationwide shortage of commercial refrigeration technicians is “disrupting essential operations, creating a bottleneck to transitioning away from HFC refrigerants and threatening U.S. supermarkets’ ability to meet new regulatory requirements.”
The assessment outlined data-driven solutions to improve recruitment, training and retention for refrigeration technicians, inspiring the development of its on-demand technician training program.
Advancing NatRefs in the U.S.
In addition to providing training for various industry stakeholders, the NASRC also helps support the sector’s transition away from f-gases by coordinating funding opportunities to offset the upfront costs of natural refrigerant technologies.
Earlier this year, the NASRC became a third-party administrator for the California Air Resources Board’s F-gas Reduction Incentive Program (FRIP). The program aims to reduce high-GWP emissions by incentivizing the adoption of climate-friendly – particularly ultra-low-GWP (GWP less than 10) – technologies.
The organization also works with New York State on its grant program to replace HFC refrigeration, advises government agencies on policy and technical applications and contributes to industry best practices, standards and codes.
At the ATMOsphere (ATMO) America Summit 2024, Danielle Wright, Executive Director of the NASRC, was named Person of the Year at the annual conference’s awards ceremony. The conference took place June 10–11 in Washington, D.C., and was organized by ATMOsphere, publisher of NaturalRefrigerants.com.
