Transcritical CO₂ industrial refrigeration technology will find use on the high seas as a commercial cruise ship operator inks a contract with GEA. The green refrigeration technology has already been installed on board P&O Cruises’ 2,000-passenger ship Arcadia, where it will deliver the energy-efficient cooling supply for all of the ship’s food-and-beverage refrigeration units.

Discussions between GEA and P&O Cruises, part of Carnival Corporation & PLC, are ongoing with a view to rolling out to the cruise line’s full fleet. Among current projects under consideration are installing transcritical CO₂ refrigeration plants to additional cruise ships in the existing fleet and fitting the technology directly in new P&O Cruises’ ships as they are constructed.

The modular CO₂ plants operate using multiple GEA Bock compressors that are suited to the high pressures of CO₂ refrigeration systems. Redundancy is built in the plant so that failure of one or even multiple compressors will not cause the system to stop working. Installation can be carried out while the ship is underway, without affecting continued use of the legacy system before switchover takes place.