A narrative to inspire. A blog simply to make your head spin ??

At Juutac we understand the challenges you as a component/solution supplier to the natural refrigerants market face.

The following are some core questions that will pop up, assuming one owns the capabilities of developing and bringing to market a product meeting the technical demands.

1. Is there sufficient volume to cover my expenses bringing my ideas to market within an acceptable timeframe and making my investment pay off long term? 

2. And how sensible is the market to my technology and pricing if I do something unique that could accelerate the uptake of natural refrigerants vs. the trend of continuing as we have always done in the industry?

Being more positive oriented than negative here at Juutac we will say YES to #1 and It Depends to #2 here above. 

Why?

First, it only goes one way for natural refrigerants, and it is upwards regarding volume. yes, even potential blends of naturals are coming to stay. Does who will tell you different, I will recommend you investigate their background, and who they represent. Let me get it straight, right away, we are not ready to let the chemicals go just yet…but eventually why not…?

Second, yes, a market will be price sensitive, and in addition especially within refrigeration technology we have a very conservative industry to deal with. And in all fairness, they must be. It is all about food preservation and food safety… Primarily… at least. We see less conservatism talking Air conditioning and Heat pumps, yes these are also serious players for sure, and the big volume players one could argue are just as conservative as the refrigeration teams. But it is in this second point your potential lies hidden as a component/solution provider. Let us try and inspire you to see this in the same way as us at Juutac, because it really does depend on more factors.

Natural refrigerants are not created equal neither towards each other nor towards some of the HFOs coming forward, so their potential is different. Some are strong as pure application players (one function Chilling, freezing or heating) on COP, but may have drawbacks on safety regarding Pressure, Flammability and Toxicity and regarding GWP (Global Warming Potential). Here your potential is in disrupting some of these applications thinking things different together with your customer, the system builder/OEM, and change the way the full application is approached. You may with your components, open the potential for your customers to have a different take on the market.

Remember many will not like you for having a totally different take on how the demographics of capital is distributed in their traditional approach to the market. Here a few examples:

Take the early days of the CO2 refrigerant renaissance … the equipment was more expensive but a few years in the End users reported cost parity on the full install in supermarkets as example. How could that be. Yes, as volume grew the equipment came down in cost and the R744 (CO2) refrigerant itself was often many times cheaper, meaning that systems with a decent “charge” made sense to do with CO2. Then around the same time trends with Heat recovery first and a little later parallel compression (Creating load possible on 0 to +5 degree c and the ability to perform less thermodynamic suicide on the gas loop in hot seasons ?? ) transformed the systems to energy systems instead of just refrigeration systems. Suddenly Heating and Air conditioning could be run out of the same system, and in reality, with very little additional footprint.

Another example is within industrial refrigeration. What is seen is that some of those players that have grown with the CO2 trend in food retail have shown that their concepts at scale is a fair choice for some industrial like projects. Writing this for sure will annoy many pure ammonia players… And they have good reasons to be annoyed, as CO2 is not always the right choice for very large installs, but sometimes they are.. as end users are not stupid, and they are clever enough them self to decide how they make a tradeoff between Capax (capital expenditure or First cost if you like), Energy consumption (COP), Service and overhaul cost, “standard” build vs. project build… Yes, go ahead in the comments and tell us all the things we forget to take into account…

One could argue we do not finish this fully and conclude here, and the reason is that it must be evaluated for the individual projects what makes the best sense… It is a simple at that…and end of the day it is the end user that pays for it…Unless we do a service model and you gamble your energy prices will drop as example…but that will be for another post… yes and the end user still pays, but some elements are different in those models.

The above shows you that depending on where your customers (Often the OEMs) serve a customer of their, there will be chances for you to uniquely position yourself as a viable option for them to stand out and offer the world a solution that solves their needs with a natural refrigerant.

As a component/solution supplier what may you do for these OEMs that the “others” cannot…? Relax… we focus on you supporting customers transition to natural refrigerants with benefits instead of how we differentiate from potential competitors. Remember.

We are playing in a conservative industry, so being a first mover may allow you good benefits. Yes, you may even be able of iterating 3 to 4 times before the others get out of bed 

You have the chance to grab other ways of doing in radical ways…and we hereby offer you ideas we think are not covered by anyone else and hence may be far out. 

a. Safety valves with a device that can communicate if leaking or have blown

b. Safety switches build into terminal block of compressor instead of externally mounted switch… Go ahead compressor heads…steel that idea if it is not already patented…you may with some of the recent legislation even redo your electronics and in a clever way measure your way out of it instead of true pressure sensing…did not check it out. 

c. The closing stem on a compressor shut of valve could double as a safety valve…

d. And why is it that none of the Receiver or compressor players as example are not offering their fairly large components as structural elements of the racks and condensing units…Play to your strengths… just like some of the motorbikes where the engine became carrying elements of the structure.

e. We could go on… but need you to inspire us more.

Hoped this poked you a little and you as a minimum considered that things can potentially be done different for the better.