Kunming Dongqi Technology develops transcritical CO₂ booster rack

On 2 November, around 20 participants were invited to tour Kunming Dongqi Technology Co., Ltd.'s (Dongqi) testing facility in Kunming, China, where the company was displaying its recently developed transcritical CO₂ booster rack system aimed at the Chinese food retail market.

The locally manufactured system represents yet another step forward towards a growing local market for CO₂ technology in China.

The tour was organised by the China Chain Store & Franchise Association (CCFA). Participants included several Chinese end users, component suppliers and system manufacturers.

The transcritical CO₂ booster system, which was under development for two years, was supported by China's Ministry of Ecology and Environment, Foreign Economic Cooperation Office (MEE-FECO) and Xi'an Jiaotong University.

Dongqi said the system had been thoroughly tested over the past few months and the results had been positive.

"The technology has passed our acceptance test, the equipment is stable, performance is high, and commercial application conditions have been met," said Dongqi in a statement. "It can now be put on the market for practical application."

Xiaochuan Yang, Dongqi's chief engineer, stated that the medium temperature range for the system is from -2°C to +10°C, and the low temperature range is from -30°C to -20°C.

The CO₂ booster system features Dorin compressors, Danfoss controls and a LU-VE gas cooler.

Yang said one of the challenges the company would face going forward was bringing down the cost of the system to make it more competitive in the market.

Yang added that the company was to hoping to see more locally available components in China in the near future.

Yang does see, however, a lot of potential for CO₂ systems in the Chinese market now, explaining that the company is currently in the process of marketing the system to end users in China.

Dongqi has a long history of working with CO₂ technology in China. It began to develop its own CO₂ heat pumps in 2009.

The company is now one of the leading manufacturers and suppliers of CO₂ heat pumps in China, boasting more than 700 units installed in the market as of the end of 2017.

Dongqi joins other OEMs offering transcritical CO₂ rack systems in China, including China-based Panasonic Appliances Refrigeration System (Dalian) Co., Ltd., which exhibited its own transcritical CO₂ rack system at China Refrigeration in April (Panasonic did not exhibit the system at the ChinaShop 2018 exhibition this year), and Zhejiang XingXing Refrigeration Co., Ltd. (XingXing) which debuted a new transcritical CO₂ rack system at ChinaShop 2018.

Dongqi Technology develops transcritical CO₂ system