Industry news

Two developments landed in the refrigeration world during the first ten days of October. They look unrelated, but read together they say something useful about where the money is moving.

The first is corporate. On October 2, Sweden's Atlas Copco Group confirmed it had completed the acquisition of Guangdong Euroklimat Air-Conditioning & Refrigeration, known across the industry as EK Air Conditioning. The acquired business generates annual revenue of roughly RMB 1.281 billion, runs manufacturing and assembly operations in Guangdong and Tianjin, employs more than a thousand people, and holds national high-tech enterprise status. When an industrial conglomerate of that size absorbs a mid-sized temperature-control manufacturer, it is a fairly clear signal that industrial climate equipment has been judged worth a serious bet.

The second is project-level. On October 10, the Sichuan provincial state assets commission reported that Changhong Central Air Conditioning had commissioned a chilled-water system for a converted smart-TV plant in Nantou, Zhongshan, designed for annual output of 15 million units. The installation pairs an "efficient plant room" with a thermal storage tank: two 1,800 USRT variable-frequency centrifugal chillers plus a tank holding 21,113 RTH of cooling capacity. According to the official account, the plant room achieves a comprehensive energy efficiency ratio of 5.67, against a typical industry range of 4.0 to 4.5. The system switches automatically among four operating modes — direct chiller supply, charge, discharge, and simultaneous charge-and-discharge — using time-of-use tariffs to shift load away from peak hours.

Set those two stories next to the cold-year numbers and the outline of the market becomes visible. In the 2026 cold year (August 2025 through July 2026), global household air-conditioner shipments reached 200 million units, down 9.4 percent year on year. The overall pie is shrinking, but the money has not disappeared — it has simply moved. Upward, into industrial temperature control and high-efficiency plant rooms. Downward, into food-service kitchens, a segment that used to be an afterthought and has now become non-negotiable.

Kitchen cooling: no longer an optional extra

Kitchens are where the shift is sharpest this year. Industry surveys from several channels converge on the same figure: more than 60 percent of chain restaurant operators have raised the share of ventilation, cooling, and air-purification systems in their kitchen renovation budgets to 15–20 percent. That is not simply operators feeling generous. Municipal market regulators have been tightening requirements on cooking-fume emissions and kitchen working temperatures year by year, and the old approach — an exhaust fan plus a generic fume purifier — is getting harder to defend during inspections. People in the trade have quietly stopped calling kitchen air conditioning an optional extra and started calling it essential infrastructure.

Sub-segment growth supports the point. A regional market review covering Anqing found that deliveries of dedicated kitchen air conditioners, workstation cooling units, and workshop cooling units in 2026 rose more than 27 percent year on year. The review also flagged an uncomfortable detail: buyers who tried to save money by adapting domestic air conditioners or installing oversized industrial fans often found the equipment failing within three months, with clogged evaporators and spiking power draw, leaving them worse off on total cost.

Why do domestic units collapse in a commercial kitchen? The operating conditions are simply different. Heat load density in a kitchen is high, so required cooling capacity typically runs 1.5 to 2 times that of an ordinary dining room. Cooking fumes deposit on evaporator fins and form an insulating film that steadily degrades heat transfer. The humid air around the cooking line accelerates corrosion of copper tubing and sheet-metal parts. A unit built for a kitchen therefore needs dedicated design work in three places at minimum: corrosion-resistant coatings on the heat exchanger, filters that can be removed and washed on a schedule, and sealed electrical components protected against grease.

Water-cooled exchange, and the cost of staff turnover

On the technology side, water-cooled heat exchange is drawing attention. One manufacturer cites measured data showing water-cooled heat exchange can be more than fifty times as efficient as air-cooled, and that with anti-grease design a unit can hold roughly 28°C in a kitchen running at 55°C, while a condensate recovery device removes the need for an external drain line. After eight outlets of a Shenzhen tea restaurant chain standardized on such equipment, kitchen temperatures stayed below 28°C, staff turnover fell from 35 percent to 8 percent, output efficiency rose by a fifth, and electricity costs dropped 18 percent. The turnover number may matter more than the temperature — kitchens lose people because of heat.

Exports have not slowed

The international refrigeration, air conditioning, ventilation, heating, air and water purification trade fair opened in Rio de Janeiro on October 6, drawing roughly 100 brands and more than 10,000 industry professionals. ABRAVA, the Brazilian association for refrigeration, air conditioning, ventilation and heating, reports 2025 industry revenue of about BRL 50.15 billion, projected to reach BRL 55.62 billion in 2026. Split air-conditioner production in Brazil rose from 3.816 million units in 2023 to 6.385 million in 2025 — growth of more than 60 percent in two years. Gree has operated in South America for over two decades and now leads with inverter and high-efficiency products while building out VRF, light commercial, and large central systems; for the humid coastal conditions of northeastern and southeastern Brazil it has strengthened anti-corrosion design. At the show, the head of a Brazilian refrigerant company said roughly 60 percent of its business involves Chinese firms, and its share of the relevant Brazilian market sits between 20 and 25 percent.

Low-GWP refrigerants are now the default premise

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries extended overseas sales of its ETI-W heat-recovery centrifugal heat pump range from October; the unit recovers low-temperature waste heat from factory processes and upgrades it to water at up to 90°C, with a maximum heating capacity of 640 kW, a heating COP of 4.01, and low-GWP HFO-1233zd(E) as the refrigerant. Johnson Controls launched a hydrocarbon heat pump line on October 6 with output temperatures up to 122°C. And on October 8, Canada announced CAD 2 billion over eight years for residential energy-efficiency retrofits, with a national heat pump rebate program expected to reach as many as 820,000 households and pay up to CAD 10,000 for households below median income.

The trade show calendar rolls on. From October 21 to 23, the ninth Henan Minquan Refrigeration Equipment Expo runs at the Minquan Mengdie convention center, covering 30,000 square meters under the theme "Green Cooling Gathers in Minquan, Quality Export Goods Link the Globe." For companies making kitchen cooling and frozen-drink equipment, regional shows like this often deliver more than the big international ones — the visitors arrive with actual purchasing requirements.

Looking back at the year so far, the refrigeration industry does not really need the word "confidence." The decline in the overall market is real, and so is the growth. It is simply no longer spread evenly across every category. It concentrates in equipment that solves a specific problem: a plant room that cuts a factory's power bill, a kitchen air conditioner that survives grease and humidity, a frozen-drink machine that holds output at 55°C. Understand the operating conditions properly and the orders follow.