INCORPORATING COLD CHAIN
EVENTS AND EXHIBITIONS
Isolde Dobelin
The closing ceremony with all of the participants at the special edition of WorldSkills 2022 at Chillventa .
and air conditioning technicians are crucial in this connection , as well as in supplying human comfort at home and in commercial buildings .
Furthermore it reduces environmental impact by using environmentally friendly refrigerants ( low GWP-refrigerants ), minimising leakage and reducing energy consumption . Minimising heat load and improving efficiency is an important part of this occupation ’ s contribution to a sustainable future on Earth , by reducing the consumption of fossil fuels like coal , gas and oil , in favour of electricity generation . Cold Link Africa ’ s team was at the special edition of WorldSkills 2022 that was hosted at Chillventa in Nuremburg , Germany in October 2022 . Several other South African representatives were also at the global show .
Representing the African continent were two technicians – Mogamat Fisher from South Africa ( placed 14 th ) and Sakaria Hofni from Namibia ( placed 16 th ). The winner in the category of refrigeration and airconditioning was Chia-Cheng Tien from Chinese Taipei . Hugo Geraldo from Portugal placed second and Patrick Danninger from Austria was third . The competition was indeed a close race with the placing of participants being misleading with only 85 points separating the first and last placed competitors . According to South African representative Isolde Dobelin who attended in person , the competitors from the region did well .
“ Skills change worlds ” – was one of the comments of the participants while others expressed that “ refrigeration and airconditioning technicians are able to work all over the world and so there is such an exciting opportunity for such tradespeople ”. Yet another participant said that “ competing at WorldSkills , its really eye-opening at the different approaches and designs the different competitors come up with to solve the same challenge ”.
Over the days of the competition , the technicians needed to complete various tasks including fabrication , refrigeration installation , electrical fault finding and refrigeration fault finding . The technicians main objective was to meet criteria
Cold Link Africa | Sean Macnamara Cold Link Africa | Sean Macnamara related to sustainability through energy efficiency and quality of their work in order to gain the maximum point allocations .
One of the main technical specialists offered some insight into where the various technicians had usually lost points – these being working safely , the quality of their work and using their tools incorrectly , and then the process of leak detection in system commissioning – all within set timelines . As it was explained , “ out in the industry there are penalties for example in not meeting certain timelines and this is integrated into the competition ”.
A major element of this competition , because each set of tasks was completed in groups , was keeping the scenarios secret so as not to offer a competitive advantage to anyone . CLA
The competition was indeed a close race .
Chillventa 2022 saw 844 exhibitors and 30 773 visitors to the exhibition venue in Nuremburg .
Mogamat Fisher ’ s name tag ( representing South Africa ) at his test station at WorldSkills 2022
COLD LINK AFRICA • January / February 2023 www . coldlinkafrica . co . za
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