PUNE, India — The global transcritical CO2 refrigeration market was valued at $4.9 billion in 2014, and is forecast to reach $30.7 billion by 2020, growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 40.2 percent from 2015 to 2020, according to a report published by MarketsandMarkets.

Globally, Europe is the dominant market for transcritical CO2 systems. It is expected to reach $26 billion by 2020, growing at a CAGR of 42.1 percent during the forecast period of 2015 to 2020. This substantial growth is due to the phasing down of HCFC and HFC refrigerants to bring down the global warming and ozone-depletion potential of these refrigerants. The installations in this region are mainly contributed by Denmark, where the highest number of transcritical CO2 systems has been installed. Denmark has a market share of 33.5 percent in 2015 and it is expected to grow at a CAGR of 33.9 percent from 2015 to 2020. The growing HFC phaseout initiatives in the region have attracted many industries, especially supermarkets and retail stores, which are looking to switch to transcritical CO2 owing to its properties of being environmentally friendly and highly efficient under low ambient temperatures.

According to the report, industry experts believe that the global refrigerant market is going through a revolution and carbon dioxide has a lot of potential to become the future refrigerant for commercial and industrial purposes.

Globally, the domestic heat pumps segment has been the largest end-user of transcritical CO2 systems, with more than 4 million units of ECOcute-based heat pumps installed across the globe. However, the commercial use of transcritical CO2 heat pumps is still in the growing phase. The biggest commercial application for transcritical CO2 systems is the supermarkets segment with 72.4 percent of market share in 2015.

The North America region is the fastest-growing market and has the potential to become the largest market for transcritical CO2 systems in the near future. Denmark, Germany, Canada, Japan, and the U.K. are at the forefront in transcritical CO2 system use. As end-users, China and the U.S. are expected to be the key regions in the near future.

Supermarkets are projected to be the fastest-growing segment during the forecast period from 2015 to 2020, by application; it is followed by the ice skating rinks segment. Leading players, such as Carnot Refrigeration Inc. (Canada), Carrier Commercial Refrigeration (U.S.), Green & Cool World Refrigeration AB (Sweden), and Hill Phoenix Inc. (U.S.), have been working on improving the efficiency of these systems. Suppliers are also working on making these systems more viable in hot ambient temperatures to increase their marketability in regions such as the Middle East and Asia-Pacific. The installation cost of these systems has dropped in recent years and experts believe that the payback period for a transcritical CO2 system is estimated to be less than three years. The report stated that, apart from the affordable installation cost, other properties of transcritical CO2 systems, such as better cooling capacity and improved heat rejection process, give an edge to these systems over other natural refrigerants.

More information is available here.

Publication date: 9/21/2015

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