Hey. As per our Aussie neighbors us kiwis have signed up to an Emissions Trading Scheme and our refrigerants will soon cost a whole heap more. I have a DX R404a glycol chiller using remote air cooled condensers and a substantial receiver that needs to be relocated. I have proposed to my customer that to reduce the refrigerant charge we remove the air cooled condensers and install PHE's to minimize future refrigerant costs should a leak develop. I have considered this further and I have pondered a critical charge system without the receiver.
I have commissioned many critical charge NH3 systems with high side float in exactly the same application so why not with R404a? I guess the serviceability will be reduced as there will be nowhere to pump down to should a component fail but I think I could get the charge down below a single jug (10.9kg) doing this. The thought was to update the current TE12 TEVs to Carel E3V to make it more stable and as it is in a pretty stable process (no wild swings) I could see this as a reasonable option. The current remote condenser was not installed by me and the liquid drain is hideously small, creating liquid hang up in the condenser. This system currently holds far too much refrigerant and Id guess we could decent the bulk of it and have surplus should it be needed.
Any thoughts, or does anyone have a setup operating as described in the real world that runs well?