New Harmonized Standard for Commercial Refrigeration Provides Increased Safety and Performance Limits for Flammable Refrigerants.
The technical standard EN IEC 60335-2-89:2022 was harmonized with the EU Machinery Directive (MD), introducing significant changes to the safety requirements for self-contained and split-type commercial refrigeration equipment.
The harmonized standard now covers safety requirements for a wide range of commercial refrigeration equipment, including plug-in units, built-in cabinets, semi-plugged cabinets (water circuit), close-coupled cold room units and more. The main changes brought about by this new harmonized standard include increasing the charge limits for A3 and A2L refrigerants, which improves the performance and efficiency of commercial refrigeration systems.
In particular, for A3 refrigerants such as propane and isobutane, the charge limit can now be increased from 150 g to approximately 500 g, and for A2L refrigerants (highly flammable), the charge limit is increased from 150 g to 1.2 kg. However, for split systems, the use of more than 150 g of flammable refrigerant is not allowed.
This new harmonized standard is an important step towards greater use of natural refrigerants, as it allows performance limits to be increased when using flammable refrigerants. This means that products such as blast freezers or ice makers can potentially provide higher productivity while maintaining safety standards.
It is important to note that the principle of the new standard is to ensure that the risk associated with large quantities of flammable refrigerant remains unchanged. Therefore, to maintain safety levels, a number of compensating measures and additional requirements for manufacturers on product design and testing, as well as store layout and facility layout, have been implemented.
Overall, this harmonized standard represents significant progress in safety and capacity limits for commercial refrigeration equipment, paving the way for increased efficiency and productivity while maintaining the highest safety standards.
