Piggly Wiggly Store Achieves GreenChill Platinum Certification
The newly opened Piggly Wiggly #444, located on 2424 Woodruff Farm Road in Columbus, Ga., has earned platinum GreenChill certification, thanks to a partnership with Kysor/Warren, a division of Dallas-based Heatcraft Worldwide Refrigeration. The store is one of a handful in the nation to attain the program's highest certification for environmentally friendly refrigeration systems, and only the second store in Georgia.
"Piggly Wiggly's commitment to achieve GreenChill certification standards for its new store proves that the company is serious about its role in protecting the ozone layer and preventing climate change," said Tom Land, manager of the Washington, D.C.-based EPA GreenChill Partnership, which works with supermarkets to reduce refrigerant emissions and decrease their impact on the ozone layer and climate change. "It is important that companies understand that helping the environment has become the business model of the future."
State of the System
The store's refrigeration system design employs ammonia (NH3) and carbon dioxide (CO2) as refrigerants in a cascade arrangement. Kysor/Warren's design has reduced the amount of ammonia refrigerant to only 3/4 pounds per ton of refrigeration totaling 53 pounds, all of which is confined to the roof of the supermarket. Minimizing the ammonia charge eliminates the need for on-site engineers and other requirements usually associated with ammonia applications. The hydrofluorocarbon (HFC)-free solution has zero ozone depletion potential and virtually eliminates global warming impact as compared with traditional HFC refrigeration systems. As well as providing significant direct emissions benefits, the NH3/CO2 cascade system can provide greater energy savings than either traditional HFC systems or CO2 transcritical systems in many climates. Finally, the cascade system is also highly configurable and can be designed with other high-side refrigerants to meet individual retailer preferences.
Along with using natural refrigerants, Piggly Wiggly #444’s refrigeration system recovers heat to save energy in the hot-water system. The location's other energy-saving features include skylights and LED ambient lighting throughout, in addition to doors on all beverage, preserved-meat and dairy refrigerated cases.
According to the EPA, a typical supermarket leaks about 1,000 pounds of harmful refrigerant gas into the atmosphere annually. GreenChill platinum-certified stores reduce those emissions by at least 95 percent. The new Piggly Wiggly store exceeds even those standards, with a yearly global warming impact of only a fraction of 1 percent of a store using HFCs as a refrigerant.
Piggly Wiggly LLC, operating stores in the southern and midwestern United States, is an affiliate of Keene, N.H.-based C&S Wholesale Grocers.