LONDON, United Kingdom, 22 September 2023: Epta Group (Epta) and Energy Recovery announced they won the Refrigeration Innovation of the Year for the Extra Transcritical Efficiency (XTE), Epta’s commercial CO2 refrigeration system. Making the announcement through a Press release, Epta said the award recognises systems, products, or processes that utilise new technology to provide innovations to refrigeration.

Daniele Mazzola, Technical Marketing Manager, Epta, said: “We are honoured to accept this recognition from the RAC Cooling Industry Awards, and our goal has always been to propose solutions that support our customers in their green transitions. Furthermore, our collaboration with Energy Recovery is a step in bringing the energy-saving technology to the refrigeration market.”

The XTE solution, EPTA said, utilises the energy savings and efficiency benefits of the PX G1300 and packages them into a complete next-generation refrigeration system. The company further said the application of Energy Recovery’s pressure exchanger (PX) technology can significantly improve the operation of the transcritical CO2 plant at any latitude.

KC Chen, Vice President of CO2, Energy Recovery: “When we began developing the PX G1300, we strongly believed that this product could provide the same efficiency gains in refrigeration that our PX technology delivers in desalination. And it is deeply gratifying to have that belief validated by the refrigeration industry and adopted by Epta.”

EPTA said the installations of the PX G1300 at several North American and European supermarkets have demonstrated efficiency improvements of over 30% under certain conditions. The XTE mechanism, Epta added, not only reduces consumption peaks during warm months, enabling energy savings of more than 30% above 40 degrees C compared with a traditional transcritical system but also offers significant benefits in cold months, during which the XTE system starts running when temperatures are 10 degrees C.

Furthermore, Epta said that as European supermarkets battle rising energy costs and soaring summer temperatures, the XTE and PX G1300 for CO2 refrigeration can reduce power consumption and safeguard retailers against high discharge failures and consequential damages from food losses.