Steep Growth Seen in R290 Adoption in Europe

June 14, 2021

Italian OEM Euroklimat is seeing an increasing interest in propane (R290) refrigeration solutions, with the popularity of the refrigerant enjoying significant growth, particularly in Europe.

“The analysis of the trends shows that interest in propane is enjoying steep growth, especially in Europe,” said Michele Bedin, Managing Director of Euroklimat in a blog post on the company’s website.

Euroklimat started working with R290 12 years ago. “If in the first few years the requests came mainly from Denmark and the other Nordic countries, today we are witnessing a general interest throughout the continent, with the UK, Germany, Austria and France leading the way and, beyond Europe, an opening to this technology by Australia and New Zealand,” Bedin noted.

Bedin attributes the uptick in R290 adoption to international regulations such as the European Union’s F-Gas Regulation and the Kigali Amendment, “combined with the sense of responsibility of the international end users, who are helping to steer the market toward a more sustainable future.”

The importance of R290 products has also grown for Euroklimat. Today 60% of the company’s production is in R290. “In the next 5 years we aim to reach 90% of R290 solutions, demonstrating that growth and respect for the environment can be an indissoluble pairing.”

Close partnership with Frascold

Euroklimat has long been engaged in a close partnership with Italian compressor manufacturer Frascold, in R290 system production and development. “Frascold, from the outset, has set itself up as the ideal partner with which to share this challenging project and, today, in the light of the results achieved, also thanks to their contribution, we can say with pride that we are positioned as the market leader in the R290 applications in Europe,” Bedin said.

Frascold offers a range of semi-hermetic, piston and screw compressors using R290, almost all of which are certified according to the European Union’s ATEX safety requirements.

A recent example of a Euroklimat R290 project is the installation of an air-to-water chiller for a Danish cheese manufacturer. This R290 chiller is equipped with inverter-driven semi-hermetic reciprocating compressors, a finned pack heat exchanger and three EC fans. It is also equipped with a brazed plate evaporator and soundproofing “sandwich” panels.