答:近些年来,诸如全球变暖等环境问题已经在全球范围内变得越来越重要。由于我们的经济活动导致的化石燃油燃烧所产生的CO2排放增加被认为是造成气候变化的主要原因之一。为解决这些问题,最近几年,热泵技术被高度重视。事实上,热泵技术已经被全球广泛采纳,成为解决能源和环境问题的技术方案之一。
热泵可以产生数倍于输入能源的热能,能效极高,因此它将在防止地球变暖和推动能源高效利用中发挥着重要的作用。
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1. Direction of the development prospect
Recently, environmental issues like global warming prevention have become increasingly important on a global scale. The rise in CO2 emissions by burning fossil fuels, which resulted from our economic activities though, is pointed out to be one of the causes of climate change. As a means of solving these problems, high hopes have been placed on heat pump technology in recent years. In fact, heat pump technology is internationally accepted as one of the solutions to energy and environmental issues.
Being able to create heat energy several times larger than the input energy, a heat pump is superb in energy saving, and thus it is highly expected to play a key role in preventing global warming and promoting an effective use of energy.
随着经济的发展,在最近几年里,全球每个国家的制冷空调市场都显示了强劲的发展势头。同时,制冷和空调设备也消耗了相对多的电力,由此,随着这些设备的普及,电力供应问题可能变得更加突出。能源供应,如电力是支撑各国经济发展的基础。由此,对节能的需求也日益增长。
变频技术是解决能源问题的方案之一。通过变频技术的使用,电力的消耗明显降低了。
尽管目前变频设备在全球市场中的比例仅有25%,但随着节能设备的增长,这个份额肯定会更高。
2. Energy efficiency
The world's refrigeration and air conditioning market is projected to show significant growth in years to come, along with economic growth in each country. Meanwhile, refrigeration and air conditioning equipment consumes relatively much electric power, therefore, issue of electricity supply may become obvious with further dissemination of those equipment. Energy supply such as electricity is infrastructure supporting economic growth in each country. Accordingly, requirement for energy-saving is likely to increase more and more.
Inverter technology is one of the solutions to energy issues. The consumption of electric power can be significantly reduced by use of the inverter technology.
Though a share of inverter equipment is now only about 25% of the global market, this share will be most likely higher due to increasing the energy-saving requirement.
大多数热泵仍使用碳氟化合物作为制冷剂。当人类发明碳氟化合物的时候,他们被认为是20世纪最伟大的发明之一,他们具备作为制冷剂的理想特性。
然后,他们被发现对臭氧层具有破坏力,最近,他们又被指出对全球变暖有严重的危害。由此,在很多国家,碳氟化合物的生产和使用受到了限制或禁止。为解决这些问题,行业迫切需要开发对全球变暖影响小的新一代制冷剂。
同时,为降低碳氟化合物对全球变暖的影响,高GWP值制冷剂的使用和他们的排放也应将逐步减少。
评估新一代制冷剂不仅需要考虑GWP值,还应综合考量GWP值、安全性和LCCP指数等等。LCCP指数是同时考虑到了"直接排放"和"间接排放"的计算结果。直接排放包括制冷剂和设备生产过程中的CO2排放,以及在设备使用和报废过程中的制冷剂泄漏。间接排放是指设备运行过程中消耗的能源的排放。
制冷和空调行业已经开始了天然制冷剂的研究,如水、空气、氨、CO2和碳氢。这些制冷剂在空调和制冷设备中使用的时候,存在可燃性等安全问题,以及性能等各种问题。由此,他们的使用是受到一定限制的。特别是碳氢制冷剂,一旦泄漏和遇明火,它很容易爆炸,导致严重的事故。因此,我们认为碳氢制冷剂不应广泛使用。
目前,我们认为新一代制冷剂的最佳选择是R32。综合考虑GWP值和能耗、安全性以及经济性,空调将选择R32作为替代制冷剂,成为全球变暖的解决方案。目前在日本,使用R32作为制冷剂的空调的销售总量已经超过100万台。
目前,已经开发并公布了多种新一代制冷剂。他们的GWP值很低,但每种制冷剂都有其缺点,诸如微可燃性或压力较高。尽管如此,我们仍将使用这些制冷剂以努力防止全球变暖,这是我们行业面临的最大挑战之一。
另一方面,CO2已经被家用热泵热水机所采用,冰箱使用碳氢制冷剂,其充灌量低于150克。大型冷水机组可能会采用HFO作为制冷剂。
对于我们来说,应努力推动在不同的产品应用中采用适合的制冷剂。
3. Environmental protection
The majority of heat pumps use fluorocarbons as refrigerant. At a time when fluorocarbons were discovered, they were called one of the most excellent materials discovered in the 20th century, since they had ideal properties as refrigerant.
Then, they were found to have destructed the ozone layer, and recently, they are pointed out to have a big impact on global warming. As a result, production and use of fluorocarbons are restricted or banned in many countries. For these problems to be eased, it is urgently needed to develop next generation refrigerants with less effect on global warming.
Meanwhile, to decrease the effects of fluorocarbons on global warming, use of refrigerants with a high GWP and their emissions into the atmosphere should be reduced.
Evaluation of next generation refrigerants should not be made only by GWP, but should be made by comprehensive judgment of GWP, safety, LCCP index, etc. LCCP index is calculated taking into account both "direct emissions" and "indirect emissions." Direct emissions include CO2 emissions at the manufacture of refrigerant and equipment, plus refrigerant leaks during use and disposal of equipment. Indirect emissions are those released from energy that is consumed to operate the equipment.
The air conditioning and refrigeration industry has carried on the study of natural refrigerants, such as H2O, air, NH3, CO2 and HC. These refrigerants pose many problems in terms of safety, like flammability, and performance when they are used for air conditioning and refrigeration equipment. Therefore, their use is limited to part of those equipments. HC refrigerant, in particular, is liable to cause explosion if it leaks and ignites, having possibility of a serious accident. Consequently, we think HCs should not generally be used.
Several kinds of next generation refrigerants have been developed and presented so far. They all have a low GWP, but each of them has its drawbacks of, for instance, being slightly flammable or having high pressure. Nevertheless, we'll need to use these refrigerants somehow in an effort to prevent global warming, one of the big challenges facing our industry.
Currently, we acknowledge that the best choice of next generation refrigerants in the candidates is R32. Taking comprehensively into account not only GWP but also energy consumption, safety and economical efficiency, for the time being air conditioners will move likely forward to conversion to alternative refrigerants with a focus on R32 as a solution to global warming. Cumulative sales of air conditioners using R32 in Japan have already exceeded 1 million units.
On the other hand, CO2 is adopted for residential heat pump water heaters and refrigerators use HC (Hydrocarbon) within the limit of 150g and below. Large size chillers are possible to adopt HFO as well.
It is needed for us to push forward with adopting the right refrigerants in the right applications.