Russia’s first transcritical CO₂ hypermarket

Finding an optimal technical solution for a fast growing retail chain is the result of hard and diligent work.

"In our company, the key factors in selecting technical solutions for a new store are quality and reliability, minimum energy consumption, and compliance with the latest environmental standards. The choice in favor of a CO₂ transcritical booster refrigeration system was made due to its low power consumption, compactness, refrigerant charge reduction, and ecological performance. We expect an annual energy saving of around 20% through the use of CO₂ transcritical refrigeration system," says Andrey Budkov, the project manager in charge of CO₂ implementation in the Magnit retail chain.

Magnit has been working on the development and implementation of energy-saving technical solutions together with Danfoss for many years. "I would like to point out that Magnit is one of the few Russian retail chains that pays great attention to innovation and energy efficiency, understanding that the optimization of operating expenses is an integral part of business success. Today's example of CO₂ implementation also demonstrates that the company will not stop its trend leadership in the industry," says Maxim Vysotsky, Head of the Food Retail department, Danfoss Russia.

CO₂ is a safe, natural, and cheap refrigerant that delivers high performance, low power consumption, and significant heat recovery potential. Due to its physical properties, a CO₂-equipped system requires much smaller pipes compared to a similar HFC system (e.g. R404A). In addition, CO₂ has a low global warming potential (GWP = 1) and has no effect on the Earth's ozone screen (ODP = 0), which allows systems that use the refrigerant to meet the latest environmental requirements.

"Experience in the global food retail market demonstrates that CO₂ has gained a higher profile in many regions including South Africa, Japan, Canada, the United States, as well as many European countries. And with the tightening of HFC refrigerant regulation,
the role of natural alternatives, such as CO₂, becomes more important throughout the entire world. It's also worth noting that the cost of CO₂ is ten times lower than that of R404A, and is produced in abundance in our country," says Alexander Seravin, CO₂ technology expert at Danfoss Russia.

The CO₂ transcritical booster refrigeration system installed in the store in Voskresensk was manufactured locally in Russia by the Nord-SM company. In order to implement such an ambitious project, Nord-SM, in cooperation with Danfoss and UNIDO, undertook serious preparatory work. Nord-SM built a CO₂ operating stand at their training center and modernized their production lines to produce the CO₂-ready unit. These steps helped improve the product’s design and develop the necessary production capacity and assembly technology for the CO₂ units. Nord-SM also provided installation and maintenance training for these systems to ensure the full potential was realized by their staff.

"A few years ago our company decided to bet on CO₂, as we understood that the future of food retail business is closely related to the refrigerant. Since then, we have made a lot of effort in the study, design, and production of systems for CO₂. Among numerous advantages of CO₂, I want to highlight the fact that, due to its low cost, the customer significantly cuts down operating costs associated with the system’s charging," says Igor
Palchik, Technical Director, Nord-SM company. The refrigeration cabinets in the store were manufactured in Belarus by FREOR company.

"We supported the project since the beginning. In European countries, the demand for CO₂-enabled equipment is growing every day. Now we offer a wide range of commercial equipment
for CO₂, produced by our factory in the Republic of Belarus. The difference in the price of retail equipment for CO₂ and HFCs is negligible, and that allows innovative technologies to be competitive with traditional systems," says Lyudmila Danuk, Deputy Director, FREOR Company.