Trane Completes the Switch to Ozone-Safe R-410A

I took the last train into Clarksville, Tennessee this week (that will mean something to those with enough gray hair) to visit Trane's commercial HVAC equipment manufacturing plant. I was invited, along with a half-dozen other editors, to report on Trane's transition to an ozone-safe refrigerant in its commercial HVAC equipment. Trane used the opportunity to show off the state-of-the-art mechanical systems at the new 270-bed Clarksville Gateway Medical Center, and give us a wonderful tour of their massive, 1.2-million-square-foot Clarksville factory (one of Trane's largest). This was followed with a presentation by the Ingersoll Rand president and other company managers to the assembled 1,300 employees in celebration of the company's 18-month conversion from R-22 to R-410A — an effort that cost the company more than $100 million. (Ingersoll Rand acquired Trane in June 2008.) That was followed by a great barbeque under tents outdoors, and an exhibit of the company's 17 newly introduced, redesigned, ozone-safe products. I've got to admit that I love touring industrial facilities. Seeing massive pieces of machinery turning raw materials into complex functioning equipment somehow gives me faith that we have the skills and technical know-how to solve the really big problems we're facing, such as climate change.

But I digress. The shift away from HCFC-22 (R-22) was mandated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as part of the U.S. commitment to the Montreal Protocol, the 1987 treaty (with amendments) that addresses the phase-out of ozone-depleting substances. The deadline to make the R-22 conversion for new mechanical equipment is January, 2010; Trane beat the deadline. Most manufacturers of commercial HVAC equipment are converting to R-410A, which is a 50:50 mixture of HFC-32 and HFC-125. HFCs are hydrofluorocarbons, which unlike hydroclhorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) do not contain chlorine and do not destroy stratospheric ozone. (You've gotta like acronyms if you want to play in this space!) Because R-410A has to operate at a higher pressure than R-22, it is not a simple substitution. Mechanical equipment has to be redesigned pretty much from the ground up to work with R-410A. Because of the higher operating pressure, R-410A is somewhat less efficient, so additional changes were made in the equipment redesign to compensate with better heat exchangers — so that the resultant equipment efficiencies are actually better. For me, the day-long visit was a great opportunity to learn more about commercial-building HVAC equipment. Among the products manufactured at the Trane-Clarksville plant are the Voyager and IntelliPak lines of direct-expansion (DX) unitary packaged rooftop air conditioners, in sizes from 12.5 to 162 tons, and commercial split systems in sizes from 20 to 120 tons. Other Trane commercial HVAC products were on display as well, including their air-cooled and water-cooled chillers, variable air volume (VAV) terminal units, Axiom water-source heat pumps, and the advanced Tracer controls for HVAC equipment and building-wide systems. Along with all this, I had about 20 minutes to interview Mike Lamach, the president and chief operating officer of Ingersoll Rand, who was in Clarksville for the conversion announcement. Tidbits from this interview will doubtless make their way into EBN articles down-the-road, but most exciting to me was to learn that Trane is willing to share information that the company has been collecting on human productivity, such as testing scores in schools and speed of recovery in healthcare facilities. Getting real data on improvements in productivity or health in green buildings has been extremely hard to come by, so this is exciting indeed. We left Clarksville by van rather than train — to the Nashville airport — but otherwise it was the perfect visit. You can follow more of my musings on Twitter.