related to ATMOsphere Europe 2011
published on 12 October 2011
276 KB
Regulations developed under the Ecodesign Directive are intended to go further than just efficiency, by considering emissions of other substances and taking a lifecycle approach. However, currently the existing regulations and those under development mainly focus on efficiency. There is a big potential for advantageous requirements for naturals refrigerants in Ecodesign, provided that the industry gets involved in the process and puts forward ambitious proposals. The opening presentation for “Policy session 2: New Ecodesign requirements” also discusses the contributing factors to greenhouse gas emissions from production through to use and end-of-life of f-gas containing equipment, with the refrigerant responsible for 10 –50% of the Total Equivalent Warming Impact (TEWI). As product efficiency improves more and more, weighting of GWP of refrigerants becomes more significant. Finally Ecodesign product regulations should not be seen in isolation, as there are many interlinkages with safety and performance test standards and other regulations.
Daniel Colbourne
Dr Daniel Colbourne has done extensive scientific and analytical work on environmental safety and efficiency related aspects of refrigerants and refrigeration systems. He is a member of the UNEP Refrigeration Technical Options Committee (TOC) for the Montreal Protocol as well as a number of European and international standardisation committees. Committed to international cooperation, he played a major role in various demonstration projects supported by the German GIZ.