The World Curling Federation recently released a new edition of its specification document for design and construction of curling rinks “Curling Ice and Arena Requirements for Olympic and World Curling Federation Competitions, 1 Aug. 2018”. We are pleased to note that the federation officially has embraced CO2 as refrigerant when the document from now on states the following:
“For environmental and safety reasons a direct expansion system must use an environmentally friendly and safe refrigerant as for example CO2.”
EKA is currently supporting the refrigeration system contractor Bravida Cooling by designing the first transcritical CO2 direct expansion curling rink in the Nordic countries. The all new “Gällivare ice and event arena” in Gällivare kommun, comprising a hockey and a dual sheet curling rink, will have a direct CO2 refrigeration system with two stage heat recovery.
Gällivare is situated in the very north of Sweden in the mining district just south of Kiruna. Due to the cold climate a geothermal storage is connected to the refrigeration system serving as an additional heat source for the heat pump/refrigeration system in winter. During warmer periods the geothermal storage is recharged with subcooling heat from the CO2 system.