BAC Expands Support For NASRC, Driving Progress For Natural Refrigerants

Baltimore Aircoil Company (BAC), recently increased their support for the North American Sustainable Refrigeration Council (NASRC) as a new Gold member.

BAC is a global manufacturer of evaporative heat rejection and thermal storage equipment. Since their founding in 1938, BAC has established themselves as a leader in the global market and has demonstrated a commitment to sustainability through improved water conservation and energy efficiency throughout their product line. BAC has been an advocate for the use of natural refrigerants since the 1940’s, but took that commitment further in 2008 with the introduction of adiabatic condensers compatible with natural refrigerants.

“Developing truly sustainable cooling has been adopted as our company’s mission and really drives everything that we do,” said Jerry Lozano, sales engineer for BAC. “Since its launch in 2008, close to 2,000 sites have been converted to high efficiency adiabatic solutions, with about a quarter of those being transcritical CO2.”

Natural refrigerants have a zero or near-zero global warming potential (GWP), making them an attractive option as retailers face mounting global, federal, and state regulatory pressures to transition to low-GWP refrigerants. But high upfront cost premiums, a shortage of workforce training, lack of performance data, and technology gaps in existing stores have stymied the widespread adoption of natural refrigerants.

NASRC is an action-oriented 501c3 nonprofit dedicated to advancing the adoption of natural refrigerants in supermarkets. With the support of over 130 organizations from the supermarket refrigeration industry - including over 24,000 supermarket locations, equipment manufacturers, service contractors, engineering firms, and other stakeholders – NASRC is uniquely positioned to drive forward industry solutions to the barriers preventing the adoption of natural refrigerants in supermarkets.

“Baltimore Aircoil Company was one of the earliest supporters of NASRC’s vision and been a member since our founding in 2015,” said Danielle Wright, executive director of NASRC. “The decision to increase their membership level demonstrates an expanded commitment to advance industry progress and increases our capacity to drive solutions forward. We are glad to have their continued support.”

“We are incredibly supportive of the vision NASRC has been implementing into action, and appreciative of their efforts. The conversion from synthetic to natural refrigerants is both one of the most impactful and realistically achievable changes we can adopt to slow climate change. BAC’s long-term commitment with NASRC goes beyond sponsorship and is proud to participate in its action groups,” said Lozano. 

Together with BAC and the rest of the NASRC membership network, NASRC is working to advance solutions that offset upfront costs, establish new training opportunities, provide performance data, and address technology gaps to ultimately bring natural refrigerants on par with other refrigerant options.