A NEW APPROACH TO PERFORMANCE DATA HARVESTING AND PROCESSING IN COMMERCIAL REFRIGERATION SYSTEMS

In the last years, new lay-outs for commercial refrigeration systems, mainly based on CO2, have been progressively replacing HFC ones. Their performances are normally calculated with thermodynamic evaluations and therefore fair comparison amongst different systems is difficult. The performance of the refrigeration unit could in principle undergo a certification process similar to those adopted for other appliances; however technology is rapidly evolving, adapting to different climatic conditions and specific customers' requirements, such as integration with AC and heating system, and therefore systematic laboratory testing would be a challenge. In addition, plant design and its management heavily affect the overall efficiency. Therefore, the evaluation of the entire system efficiency requires collection of data from the field. Despite commercial refrigeration systems are fully equipped with monitoring devices, providing enormous amount of data, easily accessible information about performance and energy efficiency are often lacking and not available, though in an anonymous way, for database built up. Together, there is increasing necessity for identifying key parameters that can help in forecasting performance degradation of the entire system or of single components, to prevent costly failures. A new approach to data collection and processing is presented and its potentialities illustrated by preliminary field data.