Last Friday, the first Natural Refrigerant air-conditioning system was installed in Grenada on a commercial basis by Grenz Concept. The recently establish business seized the opportunity to fulfil the need for highly efficient, climate friendly air conditioning systems in Grenada and the region.
The first environmental issue with the cooling sector was its impact on the ozone layer through the use of halocarbon refrigerants (chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), HCFCs). Now, most of these units are phased out; but they were replaced by others using Hydrofluorocarbon (HFC), which do not affect the ozone layer, but have a greenhouse gas potential of sometimes over 14,000 times that of Carbon Dioxide.
Cooling devices are also using a lot of energy (estimated by Grenlec to be 40% of Grenada’s energy bill). This, coupled with a world-wide increase in cooling product demand, has a tremendous impact on global warming.
In a drive to reduce global warming from human activities, the cooling sector developed cooling products (air-conditioning, fridges, freezers, etc.) that are more energy efficient and use “natural refrigerants” such as propane (R290) which has both low ozone depletion and greenhouse gas potential.
Kelly Cyrus, managing director of Grenz Concept says, “Currently we have a stock of the most energy efficient and environmentally friendly air conditioning systems for sale in Grenada. Our units are 40% more energy efficient than the air conditioning systems using R22 as refrigerant. This means that by changing to the R290 systems, you can cut you energy usage almost by half.
“Our R290 systems running at an optimal temperature of 25 degrees Celsius only use an amperage of 2.9 amps. This figure shows the efficiency of our systems. Based on your energy savings the payback time for a R290 12000 BTU system is approximately 14 months.”
Other features of the units are that they are very quiet and that the compressors are gold Nano quoted to prevent rusting.”
“I am extremely pleased with the unit. It is powerful and yet very quiet. The room cools down within a couple of minutes. I run it at 25° and it is an ideal temperature for my baby daughter’s bedroom. It also makes me feel good to think that I am not destroying the future world for my daughter by trying to keep her cool at night,” said Mrs. Henry, who benefited from the first installation by the company on Friday.
Until recently, Natural Refrigerant air-conditioning system were not imported to Grenada due to the lack of regulations for installation and maintenance of these units. However, the National Ozone Unit, with the support of the C4 global project, paved the way to enable Grenada to import these units through implementing technician training, developing standards and the installation of 30 units under a pilot projects to test their efficiency.
Grenz Concept’s installation team has more than 20 years in the RAC sector in Grenada and is trained in the installation and the servicing of the R290 systems. Grenz Concept took advantage of this opportunity to position itself as a market leader.
