Geddes Refrigeration to sell new cooling technology
Published:Tuesday | February 28, 2017 | 12:00 AMTameka Gordon
Geddes Refrigeration Limited has added a new line of air conditioning systems that it is distributing on behalf of American company Lennox Heating and Cooling Systems.
Geddes has been testing the new variable refrigeration flow or VRF air conditioning system for two years, CEO Roy Lafayette told Gleaner Business, prior to its local launch.
"We should see at least a 25 per cent increase in our market share over the next 18 months from launching this product," Lafayette said Tuesday at the joint launch of the technology in Kingston.
Lennox's global channel manager, Rusty Brown, said the technology behind the cooling system is fairly new to the industry but was a game-changer in terms of cost savings.
There are two versions of the product a mini-VRF for residences, and a full-VFR for commercial use, Brown said.
Currently, many homes use mini-split units, but with those: "You have one room that's being cooled and the other rooms aren't. Or you have four or five condensing units outside," said the Lennox rep.
Different temperatures
The VRF cooling technology "gives us the ability to put one unit outside with multiple evaporators resulting different rooms being cooled at different temperatures," he added. "You can have a temperature point set for each room, and that one unit will ramp up and down to deliver the capacity that is needed for all of the evaporators in the house."
For the full-VRFs, with four units hooked together, companies can get up to "80 tonnes of air conditioning and have 80 evaporators for each office," Brown said.
Lennox's technology allows the air conditioning unit to ramp up or down to adjust the amount of energy its uses and automatically modify its settings based on internal temperatures. The system also works on solar power.