U.S. OEM Hillphoenix, a leading provider of natural refrigerant systems and display cases in North America, has expanded its portfolio of transcritical CO2 (R744) systems, accessories and energy efficiency enhancements with an emphasis on modular design to accommodate the growing demand for CO2 refrigeration in North America among convenience stores, supermarkets and industrial operators.
The OEM is also expanding its offering of propane (R290)-based cases with plans to offer a water-cooled micro-distributed Solochill system this year, providing food retailers with another natural refrigerant option.
Conyers, Georgia-based Hillphoenix has more than 3,000 installations of transcritical CO2 systems in North America. Combined with its Danish subsidiary Advansor, they have more than 25,000 installations globally. Both are brands of U.S.-based Dover Food Retail, a Dover operating company.
New CO2 systems unveiled by Hillphoenix in the past year include the AdvansorUltra, Hillphoenix’s modular industrial rack platform for a transcritical CO2 system, and the Next Generation Flex Mini, a new version of the Flex Mini rack designed for small- to mid-sized food retail stores. These complement the broader portfolio that includes CO2 condensing units and the AdvansorFlex and AdvansorFlex Max.
New energy-saving enhancements include low-pressure ejector, parallel compression and CO2 ThermaBoost, which maximizes heat reclaim; these complement the ChargeSecure charge preservation system, which has become a standard part of most Hillphoenix’s CO2 racks.
According to ATMOsphere’s 2025 refrigeration market report, the penetration rate of transcritical CO2 systems in North American supermarkets and grocery stores is 6%. (ATMOsphere is the publisher of NaturalRefrigerants.com.) In its latest Food Retailer Survey Report, the North American Sustainable Refrigeration Council (NASRC) said that U.S. market penetration of transcritical CO2 is projected to reach 29% of stores in 2029. Hillphoenix estimates that market penetration “will be close to 35% by 2035, approximately where Europe is today,” said Anand Rajagopalan, Senior Director, Product Management and Marketing for Hillphoenix.
“The uptake of CO2 is phenomenal,” said Scott Martin, Senior Director of Industry Relations and Compliance for Hillphoenix.
To meet the growing demand in the U.S. for transcritical CO2, Hillphoenix over the past five years has established a “platform portfolio of CO2 and R290 solutions for the markets that we serve,” said Rajagopalan. These markets encompass primarily food retail – supermarkets, convenience and other small-format stores – as well as industrial refrigeration.
By platform portfolio, Rajagopalan means “modularly designed products that can be built on high-speed assembly lines at scale to meet the demands of the market.”
Record year for industrial refrigeration
“Hillphoenix continues to gain traction with its large-capacity AdvansorUltra rack designed specifically for the industrial market,” Rajagopalan noted. Hillphoenix has already had another “record year for industrial refrigeration sales”, said Martin. CO2 technology is an attractive alternative to ammonia systems, which have traditionally dominated the industrial market, because CO2’s efficiency can be comparable with ammonia’s in many climates, and CO2 offers a less complex, lower first cost, safer alternative to ammonia, Martin added.
At the lower end of the format spectrum, the Next Generation Flex Mini caters to medium-to-large convenience stores (15,000 to 20,000ft2/1,394 to 1,858m2) or small-to-medium supermarkets (25,000 to 40,000ft2/2,323 to 3,716m2), and with an integrated gas cooler it can also be used in small convenience stores (under 10,000ft2/929m2). The new Flex Mini offers improved serviceability and easy access to critical components for maintenance. “Often these units are in tight spaces, and we got a lot of feedback from customers that improving serviceability will improve the installation speed and also maintenance over the life cycle of the product,” said Rajagopalan.
“To further support the convenience store and small-format market, Hillphoenix will be introducing the next generation of CO2 condensing units in late summer,” said Rajagopalan. “These will offer wider capacity ranges while significantly improving the installation experience.”
“Condensing units are the refrigeration architecture preferred by all sizes of convenience stores, which continue to show increased interest in CO2 refrigeration, and these CO2 condensing units will also serve small supermarkets, supermarkets that are remodeling parts of their store, e-commerce sections and walk-in coolers and freezers,” noted Rajagopalan.
New energy-saving components
Last year, at the FMI Energy & Store Development Conference, Hillphoenix introduced two energy-saving technologies for transcritical CO2, low-pressure ejector and parallel compression. “Several customers are already on the way to broadly adopting them,” said Rajagopalan.
“The combination of a low-pressure ejector and a dry gas cooler produces approximately the same energy savings as an adiabatic gas cooler but at a lower first cost,” said Rajagopalan. “An adiabatic gas cooler can provide an 8–12% energy savings while a low-pressure ejector by itself offers similar 8–12% in same region. Some customers are using them together for an even more favorable additive savings between 15-20%.”
“Hillphoenix has taken advantage of the many years of experiences that its European subsidiary Advansor has had with these technologies”, noted Martin, adding, “Controls are key to the proper operation of the ejector.” Similarly, parallel compression has become “more and more mainstream in Europe, and all the technicalities have been worked out of the control strategy, so we launched it here in North America,” he said. Ejectors and parallel compression are most impactful in warm ambient conditions.
Hillphoenix has also developed the CO2ThermaBoost technology to enable HVAC systems to increase the head pressure in the rack to maximize heat reclaim via hot CO2 gas for space heating. The system is being employed at a DeCicco & Sons store in Sleepy Hollow, New York, in concert with an HVAC system provided by Flō Energy Solutions. DeCicco & Sons will be hosting a free site visit at its Sleepy Hollow store on June 1 for retailers, contractors and engineers-of-record attending the ATMOsphere (ATMO) America conference, which will take place June 2–3 in nearby Tarrytown, New York.
Hillphoenix’s collaboration with Flō at the DeCicco’s store represents “the next evolution of heat reclaim that significantly improves the payback for natural refrigerants as a total store solution,” said Rajagopalan. “We traditionally considered a [CO2] rack system for only cooling purposes. But now combined with HVAC, CO2, because of its natural properties, gives us free [heat] energy. This saves a lot of money for retailers.”
In another Hillphoenix-Flō application, the DeCicco’s store uses cold air from the Flō system’s AC component to subcool CO2 gas from the gas cooler in the warmer months and to reheat the dehumidified air entering the sales floor.
In addition to providing CO2 rack systems and components, Hillphoenix supplies air-cooled R290 cases as spot coolers and freezers in supermarkets and as primary coolers and freezers in supermarkets, convenience and dollar stores. In the second half of 2026, the company plans to offer water-cooled R290 cases in an extension of its SoloChill micro-distributed line. Air-cooled R290 cases have been available, since 2025, in the larger charge configurations (300g and 500g) and the water-cooled cases will soon be as well.
“Hillphoenix sees the R290 SoloChill system as a ‘specific application’ that could be used in urban stores and high-rise buildings or in smaller formats,” said Rajagopalan. “It will be an alternative in the market but still using a natural refrigerant.”
Cost premium assessment
“The cost premium for transcritical CO2 systems compared to an HFC system is sometimes cited as a challenge to adoption, particularly by small independent supermarket operators. However, the cost evolution of CO2 systems coupled with the launch of more advanced energy efficiency technologies has significantly reduced the cost delta between CO2 and other types of traditional synthetic refrigerants, said Rajagopalan, with “many applications experiencing no premium on an installed case basis and the majority being able to show a cost advantage over the life cycle of the equipment.”
To further reduce the initial cost of a transcritical CO2 system, Hillphoenix is partnering with Therm, a company that helps grocery retailers, food distributors and dairy farmers to obtain carbon credits and utility rebates for natural refrigerant installations.
This article originally appeared on NaturalRefrigerants.com