Women in spotlight at Australian HVAC&R Leadership Awards

Climate Control News (CCN), an independent publication servicing the climate control industry in Australia, presented a series of awards today (2 August) at the Royal Randwick Racecourse in Sydney, New South Wales.

CCN created the Woman of the Year in HVACR Award this year to honour female leaders in the industry.  The award went to Ania Hampton, the first female president of the Australian Institute of Refrigeration, Air Conditioning and Heating (AIRAH).

A passionate advocate of sustainability in the HVAC&R sector, Hampton is the director of the environmental engineering company Edefice. She graduated from the University of Melbourne with an honours degree in mechanical engineering in 2003.

Scantec's Jensen awarded Emerging Leader gong

The 2016 Emerging Leader in Energy Savings Award went to the managing director of Scantec Refrigeration Technologies, Stefan Jensen.

Jensen has been commercialising low-charge ammonia refrigeration systems in Australia for some time now. He expects there to soon be nine such systems operational in Australia and one in China.

Speaking to ammonia21.com a few months ago, he said, “around 3,000-5,000 [existing HFC systems in Australia] are candidates for low-charge NH₃ and they all stand to save 40-70% on their power bills if they convert”.

Jensen has had a long career in refrigeration, originally working for Danfoss in Denmark before co-founding Sanctec in 1996. He also sits on the Board of Directors of the International Institute of Ammonia Refrigeration (IIAR).

Coles' Saville named Leader of the Year

Coles supermarkets’ national refrigeration manager, Stuart Saville, won the Leader of the Year Award for installing the first transcritical CO₂ system at Coles in 2015.

Since then, the refrigeration system has delivered average efficiency improvements of 15% (up to  a maximum of 22%) during the cooler months, compared to the previous CO₂/R134a cascade systems.

Heatcraft sponsored the Sustainability Leader Award, given to Cold Logic Technical Director Brad Semmler for his work creating Australia’s first ammonia heat pump recovery plant.