German equipment manufacturer GEA is to equip two new Chinese cruise ships with transcritical CO2 refrigeration systems – the first two cruise ships ever built in China.
In May, 2019, GEA signed a contract for transcritical CO2 refrigeration technology with Shanghai Waigaoqiao Shipbuilding (SWS), China, a subsidiary of China State Shipbuilding Corp (CSSC), which is building the two cruise ships for the new Chinese brand CSSC Carnival Cruise Shipping Ltd.
The agreement between GEA and SWS calls for the supply of refrigeration and freezing for all food and beverage refrigeration equipment on the two cruise ships, the first of which will be delivered in 2023.
“The cruise market is booming worldwide,” said Marc Prinsen, GEA’s head of application centre utilities marine. “In China alone, growth to 4.5 mill Chinese cruise passengers is forecast by 2020. This will be the first newly built cruise ships to be equipped with this type of sustainable technology. This is a really important reference project and we believe it will lead to a major spin-off.”
GEA had signed a contract last year with P&O Cruises, part of Carnival Corp, to supply its transcritical CO2 refrigeration technology. This system has already been installed on board the ‘Arcadia’, a 2,000-pax ship, where it provides refrigeration for all the ship’s food and beverage refrigeration systems.
The use of CO2 technology is relatively new in the marine business as it is difficult to develop flexible CO2 cooling systems that can be safely installed in the confined and mobile environments of seagoing vessels, said GEA.
The modular transcritical CO2 systems GEA is supplying for vessels operate with multiple GEA Bock compressors. Redundancy is built into the system and “it can be tailored to almost any available space on board and are designed to operate safely, robustly and reliably even in difficult weather conditions,” GEA said.
