Wuxi firm behind Beijing Winter Olympics

Capital Indoor Stadium is one of the venues for the upcoming Beijing Winter Olympic Games. [Photo/wxrb.com]

With less than a month to go before the Beijing Winter Olympic Games, Capital Indoor Stadium, one of the venues for the games, is now ready to welcome athletes from around the world after carrying out multiple test events.

Built in 1968, the Capital Indoor Stadium is the first artificial indoor ice rink in China. It hosted volleyball during the 2008 Beijing Olympics and serve as the venue for short track speedskating and figure skating at the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympics.

As part of Beijing 2022's promise to host a sustainable and green Games, the arena has changed its ice-making technology into an eco-friendly system that uses carbon dioxide as a clean refrigerant instead of the environmentally harmful substance Freon. The new system also shortens the time it takes to make ice and transition between speedskating and figure skating.

Beijer Ref (Wuxi) Co, located in the Wuxi-Singapore Industrial Park, designed and produced the entire ice-making system.

According to a technician from the company, the system also includes three-stage heat recovery, which will increase the combined cooling and heating coefficient of performance to 6.6.

"The system is energy efficient, which is good for the environment. Compared with traditional ice-making technology, the transcritical carbon dioxide refrigeration technology reduces energy consumption by about 50 percent, cutting carbon emissions to about one-thousandth of that of conventional equipment."

The opening ceremony of the 2022 Winter Olympics will take place on Feb 4 at the National Stadium, and the Games will run through Feb 20.