Theoretical evaluation of integrated systems for refrigeration and air conditioning in supermarkets

The electricity consumption for air conditioning and refrigerated cases in large supermarkets represents a substantial share of the total electricity consumption. The energy efficiency of supermarkets can be improved by optimising components design, recovering thermal and refrigerating energy, adopting innovative technology solutions, integrating the HVAC system with medium temperature and low temperature refrigeration plants and, finally, reducing thermal loads on refrigerated cases. This study is aimed at investigating the performance of different lay-out and technological solutions and at finding the potential for improving energy efficiency over the traditional systems. In the analysis chillers and heat pumps working with R410A, medium temperature systems working with R404A and low temperature systems working both with R404A and R744 were considered. The investigated solutions enable an annual energy saving higher than 15% with respect to the baseline solution.