Hydrocarbon

Rivacold Brings Natural Refrigerant Expertise to North America as New NASRC Silver Member

Atlanta, Georgia—Rivacold America has joined the North American Sustainable Refrigeration Council (NASRC) as a silver member. Rivacold is a manufacturer of refrigeration assemblies, including compressor receiver sets, open and housed condensing units, packaged and split systems, multi-compressor packs, air cooled and compact condensers, static evaporators, and unit coolers.

Established in Italy in 1966, Rivacold has grown to have a global presence and now offers a number of natural refrigerant technologies, such as CO2 condensing units and R290 packaged units for walk-ins. The company has engineered and installed hundreds of cost effective, efficient solutions utilizing natural refrigerants. More recently, Rivacold has begun to grow their presence in the U.S. market, where they are continuing to emphasize their natural refrigerant technologies.

“While we all continued to monitor the evolution of less environmentally impactful synthetic refrigerants, it became more and more clear that natural refrigerants have a long-term place in our industry. There is a visible trend today with multi-circuited parallel hydrocarbon and CO2 split systems, both of which Rivacold has great experience with. Therefore, when given the opportunity to be a part of NASRC and help accelerate the movement in the market to a more stable and responsible position, it only seemed …… natural and we look forward to getting more engaged.”

-Doug Schmidt, President, Rivacold America

Globally, the supermarket industry has begun to transition to climate-friendly refrigerants with low global warming potential (GWP). Natural refrigerants, including carbon dioxide (CO2), ammonia (NH3) and hydrocarbons, have extremely low global warming potentials and offer technically viable solutions in supermarkets. 

However, despite the growth in natural refrigerant adoption throughout Europe, natural refrigerants are not yet widely adopted in the U.S. due to a unique set of market barriers, such as upfront costs, lack of trained service contractors, and uncertainty around lifecycle costs.

The NASRC is a 501c3 nonprofit focused on taking action to eliminate the barriers slowing the widespread adoption of natural refrigerants in supermarkets and create a more climate-friendly future for refrigeration. The organization works with Rivacold and over 125 other industry organizations to take actions that overcome the challenges associated with naturals. 

 “We are excited to welcome Rivacold to our membership network. We look forward to leveraging their global expertise to add strength to our initiatives.”

- Danielle Wright, Executive Director, NASRC

In addition to Rivacold, NASRC is supported by a strong network of members, which represents over 24,000 supermarket locations in North America, major equipment manufacturers, service contractors, and other stakeholders.

“Our network of members is the driving force that propels our mission forward,” said Wright. “Together, we can move the needle on natural refrigerant adoption in the U.S., and we are pleased to have Rivacold participate in those efforts.”

More information about Rivacold is available at www.rivacold.com/ww/en.

RSES Offers NASRC Members Over 50% Off Hydrocarbons Training

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The Refrigeration Service Engineers Society (RSES) has generously offered NASRC members a discounted rate for the RSES Hydrocarbon Safety Refrigerants Training Course Third EditionNormally priced at $150, NASRC members can now participate in the RSES hydrocarbons training for a discounted rate of $72 per technician. 

About the Training
The RSES training includes a full eLearning course on working safely with Hydrocarbon refrigerants. Currently in the third edition, this course covers practices for the following refrigerant families: 

  1. HC R-290 (propane)

  2. HC R-600a (isobutene)

  3. HC R-441A (a blend*)

  4. HC R-170 (ethane)

  5. HFC R-32 (difluoromethane)

The course is composed of four parts:

  1. Standards and Regulations

  2. Refrigerant Properties and Safety System Component Compatibility

  3. Servicing Procedures

  4. The Refrigeration Cycle Cylinder Storage and Transport


The course includes a PDF of the study guide, a narrated online presentation highlighting key topics from the study guide, and a certificate test assessing your understanding of the material.
 
Read more about the training here.

Contact the NASRC for instructions to access the training discount!