Connect with us

Technology

Dr Rob Lamb to Present ‘Refrigeration Choices Beyond the CO2 Hype’ at IRN 2026

Published

on

GLASGOW, Scotland, May 15, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Innovation is often driven by pressure. In refrigeration, that pressure has come from environmental regulation, rising energy costs and the industry-wide transition away from high-GWP refrigerants.

At the 3rd Industrial Refrigeration Network Conference 2026, which will be held on 10–11 June 2026, at the SCHAUFLER Academy in Rottenburg-Ergenzingen, Germany, Dr Robert Lamb, Group Sales & Marketing Director at Star Refrigeration, will revisit the debate around natural refrigerants in a technical session titled “Beyond the Hype: Safe, Sustainable Cooling Systems that Stand the Test of Time.”

Building on his presentation at Cold Chain Live 2025, Dr Lamb will introduce updated modelling and operational data comparing ammonia and CO₂ systems across cold storage and freezing applications, with particular focus on lifecycle cost, energy performance and system resilience.

Both refrigerants have long histories in industrial refrigeration and are now central to the sector’s decarbonisation strategy. Ammonia offers high efficiency and long system life in large-scale applications, while CO₂ provides compact, non-flammable solutions that can be financially attractive at smaller capacities and low-temperature duties.

However, as electricity prices for non-domestic users have risen by more than 270% since 2015, energy performance has become increasingly significant in plant selection. Using a 35,000m³ cold store model operating at -22°C and a 35°C design ambient, Dr Lamb’s analysis indicates annual energy consumption of approximately 910,000kWh for a low-charge ammonia system compared to around 1.25 million kWh for a transcritical CO₂ system under identical conditions.

At an electricity price of 25p per kWh, that equates to an annual operating cost difference of approximately £86,000. Over time, the divergence materially affects total cost of ownership, with modelling showing that even where a CO₂ system carries a lower initial capital cost, lifecycle performance can shift the financial balance within a number of years depending on energy pricing.

Dr Lamb said “The discussion should not be framed as ammonia versus CO₂. Both technologies have a place. The question is how decision makers balance capital cost, operating efficiency, compliance and long-term resilience in their specific application.”

The session will also explore how packaged low-charge ammonia systems are addressing historic concerns around complexity and safety by significantly reducing refrigerant charge and simplifying installation.

The Industrial Refrigeration Network Conference, hosted by BITZER at its SCHAUFLER Academy in Germany, brings together manufacturers, contractors and end users from across the sector. Star Refrigeration’s participation reflects its continued commitment to evidence-led engineering, long-term system resilience and informed technical debate within the industry.

To find out more about the IRN Conference and to register, visit: https://trainings-events.bitzer.de/microsite/index.cfm?l=2680&modus=

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/dr-rob-lamb-to-present-refrigeration-choices-beyond-the-co2-hype-at-irn-2026-302772622.html

SOURCE Star Refrigeration

Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Technology

NEC Vietnam Appoints New General Director to Advance Digital Innovation

Published

on

By

HANOI, Vietnam, May 18, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — NEC Vietnam announced the appointment of Yasushi Numakura as its new General Director, effective April 1, 2026. The appointment reflects NEC’s continued commitment to expanding trusted technology partnerships and supporting Vietnam’s growing digital ambitions.

Numakura-san joined NEC Group in 1990 and brings over three decades of experience across systems engineering, mobile technology development, and global business leadership. In 2014, he was appointed Head of NEC Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh branch, where he drove business portfolio transformation and strengthened regional partnerships. He subsequently held leadership roles at NEC Solution Innovators and most recently led resource management reform initiatives as part of delivery model transformation efforts.

In his new role, he will lead NEC Vietnam’s business operations and strategic direction, with a focus on strengthening software development capabilities and accelerating digital transformation initiatives across key sectors, serving both the Japanese and APAC markets.

“I am excited to join NEC Vietnam and build on the strong momentum established by the local team over the years. Together with our customers and partners, we look forward to creating what’s ahead through trusted technologies and meaningful solutions that create lasting value for businesses, communities, and society. In line with NEC’s 2030 mid-term direction, we will also advance our capabilities as an AI-native organization with security at the core, ensuring that our innovations are both impactful and resilient,” shares Numakura-san.

Under his leadership, NEC Vietnam will continue providing technologies and solutions spanning software development, biometrics, and public safety.

***

About NEC Vietnam

NEC established its liaison office in Vietnam in the early 1990s under the global business framework of NEC Corporation. It was re-organized as NEC Vietnam Co., Ltd. in 2006, with a newfound commitment to grow the business and contribute towards the people and society of Vietnam.

In a rapidly changing business environment, NEC Vietnam has evolved into a comprehensive solutions provider, leveraging their core competence in delivering Solutions for Society, focused on building social infrastructure that benefits citizens and communities.

Visit https://vn.nec.com to learn more.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/nec-vietnam-appoints-new-general-director-to-advance-digital-innovation-302774786.html

SOURCE NEC Vietnam

Continue Reading

Technology

South Asia’s First-ever Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) Demonstration, Led by ISGF in Collaboration with its Technology and Utility Partners

Published

on

By

NEW DELHI, May 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — South Asia’s first ever groundbreaking Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) Technology Demonstration in India implemented by India Smart Grid Forum (ISGF) marks a major advancement in smart Electric Vehicle (EV) charging and grid stability, paving the way for a future of bidirectional energy flows between EVs and the power grid. ISGF, with its utility partners and technical support from the University of Delaware (UDEL), USA, executed this first-of-its-kind Alternating Current (AC) V2G pilot demonstration in South Asia. The demonstration project was implemented at BSES Rajdhani Power Limited, BSES Yamuna Power Limited, TATA Power Delhi Distribution Limited, as well as at the Agency for New and Renewable Energy Research and Technology (ANERT), Kerala. This pilot demonstration has tested a variety of V2G use cases and found it highly relevant for distributed renewable energy integration and grid stability.

As part of the project, four Tata Nexon EVs were retrofitted with on-board bidirectional power modules and connected to the grid through bidirectional AC chargers. The equipment cost of AC V2G is significantly lower than DC V2G. ISGF is working with local technology companies and EV OEMs to build a V2G ecosystem in the country.

For more information, please write to contactus@indiasmartgrid.org

About India Smart Grid Forum (ISGF)

ISGF is a public private partnership initiative of the Govt. of India, with the mandate of accelerating smart grid deployments across the country. With 170+ members comprising of ministries, utilities, technology providers, academia and research, ISGF has evolved as a Think-Tank of global repute on Smart Energy and Smart Cities. The mandate of ISGF is to accelerate energy transition through clean energy, electric grid modernization and electric mobility; work with national and international agencies in standards development and help utilities, regulators and the Industry in technology selection, training and capacity building.

Website: https://indiasmartgrid.org/ 

Photo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2981114/ISGF_V2G_demo_South_Asia.jpg
Logo: https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/2845462/5972830/ISGF_Logo.jpg

 

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/in/news-releases/south-asias-first-ever-vehicle-to-grid-v2g-demonstration-led-by-isgf-in-collaboration-with-its-technology-and-utility-partners-302774406.html

Continue Reading

Technology

Tencent Cloud and Stream Partner to Accelerate the Development of Real-Time Multimodal AI Agents

Published

on

By

HONG KONG, May 19, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — Tencent Cloud, the cloud business of leading global technology company, Tencent, today announced a strategic collaboration with Stream, the company behind the open-source AI agent framework Vision Agents, to accelerate the development of real-time, multimodal AI agents.

Through this collaboration, Tencent Real-Time Communication (Tencent RTC) becomes an officially supported edge transport plugin for Vision Agents, giving developers worldwide a low-latency path to build and deploy interactive AI applications across global markets, including regions where network complexity and real-time performance are critical.

Unlocking Lower-Latency Transport for Enhanced Experiences Across China and Asia

Vision Agents is an open-source, edge-agnostic Python framework from Stream that helps developers quickly build low-latency vision AI applications. Rather than retrofitting video onto a voice-centric stack, Vision Agents was designed as a video-first solution — running models such as YOLO, Roboflow, OpenAI Realtime, and Google Gemini on every frame, with sub-500ms end-to-end latency and over 25 out-of-the-box integrations across LLM, STT, TTS, vision, RAG, telephony, and avatar providers.

Through this partnership, Tencent RTC becomes an officially supported edge transport plugin for Vision Agents. Developers can use Tencent RTC to replace the default communication layer in Vision Agents and instantly leverage Tencent Cloud’s enterprise-grade backbone — more than 3,200 global nodes, sub-300ms worldwide latency, AI-driven noise suppression, and weak-network resilience — while keeping every existing LLM, STT, TTS, vision, and avatar plugin unchanged.

The integration supports both audio and video, making it suitable for voice agents, video agents, and multimodal scenarios — powering use cases such as gaming assistants, virtual avatars, sports coaching, and robotics. AI agents can join TRTC rooms and interact with participants in real-time through high-quality audio and video streams.

Tencent RTC operates a globally distributed real-time network with particularly strong performance across some markets in Asia where many global real-time stacks face connectivity and latency challenges. By integrating Tencent RTC, Vision Agents gives developers worldwide a reliable transport option for delivering low-latency, multimodal AI experiences to users in Asia. Developers can improve real-time communication performance by simply swapping the interface.

Wison Xie, Head of Product at Tencent RTC, said: “Vision Agents represents exactly where conversational AI is heading, beyond voice-only, into agents that can truly see, hear, and act in real time. By bringing Tencent RTC’s global real-time backbone to the Vision Agents framework, we are giving developers worldwide a turnkey path to ship multimodal agents that perform reliably from Silicon Valley to Shenzhen. This collaboration reinforces our commitment to powering the next generation of real-time AI experiences for enterprises and developers across global market.”

Neevash Ramdial, Director of Marketing and Vision Agents Lead, said, “Our goal with Vision Agents is to make real-time AI development faster, more flexible, and open, giving developers the freedom to choose the models, infrastructure, and plugins that work best for their applications. Developers building global conversational AI applications also need reliable real-time performance in every market, and Tencent RTC brings high-quality, low-latency connectivity across Asia to the Vision Agents ecosystem. We’re excited to work with Tencent RTC to help developers scale multimodal AI experiences worldwide while having the freedom to use whichever plugin or model best fits their app.”

About Tencent Cloud:
Tencent Cloud, one of the world’s leading cloud companies, is committed to creating innovative solutions to resolve real-world issues and enabling digital transformation for smart industries. Through our extensive global infrastructure, Tencent Cloud provides businesses across the globe with stable and secure industry-leading cloud products and services, leveraging technological advancements such as cloud computing, Big Data analytics, AI, IoT, and network security. It is our constant mission to meet the needs of industries across the board, including the fields of gaming, media and entertainment, finance, healthcare, property, retail, travel, and transportation.

About Tencent RTC: 
Tencent RTC provides real-time communication solutions, including audio/video calling, live streaming, and in-game voice. With enterprise-grade security, AI-powered enhancements, and a global network of over 3,200 nodes, Tencent RTC powers mission-critical communication for customers worldwide.

About Vision Agents: 
Vision Agents is Stream’s open-source framework that helps developers quickly build real-time video AI applications. It works out of the box with most major LLM, speech-to-text, text-to-speech, avatar, and infrastructure providers, so teams can go from idea to production in just a few lines of code, building everything from real-time sports coaches to rich, context-aware avatars.

View original content to download multimedia:https://www.prnewswire.com/apac/news-releases/tencent-cloud-and-stream-partner-to-accelerate-the-development-of-real-time-multimodal-ai-agents-302774565.html

SOURCE Tencent Cloud

Continue Reading

Trending