Emerson's Design Services Network Testing Meets
California Energy Commission, ENERGY STAR Standards

A substantial amount of energy is used each year to power commercial refrigeration equipment in restaurants, grocery stores, convenience stores and fast-food establishments. New state and federal energy efficiency standards have gone into effect for many types of commercial refrigeration equipment, and these standards are expected to become stricter each year. It is estimated that as much as half of the refrigerated foodservice equipment sold today will need to be redesigned to prepare to meet these increasingly stringent standards. Emerson’s Design Services Network laboratory is approved through the California Appliance Efficiency Program to test commercial refrigerators and freezers to these energy standards.

In 2001, the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) ENERGY STAR program enacted voluntary energy-consumption guidelines for commercial refrigerators and freezers. The California Energy Commission (CEC) subsequently used those guidelines as the basis for a state law mandating new standards, while outlawing the sale of nonconforming products. The Energy Policy Act of 2005, which becomes effective in 2010, makes the California standards national standards. More regulation is on the horizon.

Design Services Network’s testing facility houses equipment that can fully test and evaluate a variety of air conditioning and refrigeration equipment and systems in a wide range of environmental conditions. A team of Emerson experts tests the performance, quality and safety of the equipment by utilizing:

• 6 onsite test chambers & access to 22 more
• ARI 210-240 (1Ton to 300Ton)
• State-of-the-art sound chambers
• Controlled ambient rooms
• Calorimeters
• Air-flow tunnels and more

Design Services Network’s expertise includes:

• Thermal system analysis
• Fatigue and failure analysis
• Sound and vibration
• Finite Element Analysis
• Chemical evaluation of refrigerants, lubricants and their interactions

“At its heart, Design Services Network is a client-driven organization that can reduce the total product development time and expose critical design issues early in the design and testing cycles,” said Rafael Castillo, general manager of Design Services Network. “By managing an entire project from start to finish or simply providing critical design and testing capabilities as needed, our personnel can help companies save time, avoid technical risks, cut costs and ensure product viability and performance.”

The Design Services Network labs are designed to conduct tests in accordance with large international standards organizations. This means the company can test equipment and applications to international safety and sanitation standards, as well as provide input and design changes needed to help manufacturers gain approval from international standards organizations.

Emerson recently outlined all of the energy standards that affect commercial refrigeration equipment. Emerson’s white paper, The State of Energy Consumption for Commercial Refrigeration, is available via the online resource. The white paper provides a detailed look at the consumption of electricity by refrigeration equipment in foodservice industries; the current status of regulation of this consumption; and technologies available to reduce the demand for this increasingly limited resource. Also explained in this paper are California Energy Commission regulations and the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

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