The next country with presidency of the EU, Ireland, looks keen to see them through quickly and the proposal implies a decision next year, but if it is delayed only a little bit, there are European elections in the summer of 2014, which will delay things by at least a further year.Īs regards the impact on retail specifically: don’t buy any more 404A is a pretty clear message. The final regulation could be much tougher or it could be easier. It will go through a process of debate by the European Parliament and EU ministers. Will this all happen? None of this is certain.
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There’s a change on the bigger plant where a manual leak check will now have to be four times a year, not twice a year. It would mean the engineers would have to carry cards with them to calculate all the gases. This is logical in that high-GWP refrigerants should have a lower threshold in size terms, but the problem is the threshold in kilogrammes will vary with refrigerant. There is a change to the size thresholds, with the previous reference to kilogrammes replaced by equivalent in CO2. I think there is a reference to the fact that training should be renewed every five years – currently the 2079 is open-ended, whereas the other option, the J11 isn’t.
The problem with that is that requirements could be massive – if you were required to have knowledge of hydrocarbons and ammonia and CO2 and HFOs. It applies that, along with the equivalent of the C+G 2079 F-Gas qualification, you would need knowledge of the alternatives to HFCs. There are some changes to the training regime, which is a good idea, but slightly frightening because it implies the whole workforce would have to be retrained. We think they could have done some bits and pieces to make them work better. It is a bit disappointing that they haven’t done much to tweak that stuff. This all applies to new equipment.Ī lot of the other articles are essentially unchanged, covering things like installation of automatic leak detection for large systems, recovery of gas, certification of personnel and companies and record keeping. Those bits of equipment are already moving towards hydrocarbons but they will all have to be moved. Domestic refrigerators with HFCs will be banned from 2015 and the one that affects retail is on commercial hermetically sealed equipment, on the higher GWP refrigerants from 2017 and on all with a GWP above 150 by 2020. The product bans that are proposed are nowhere near as tough as the leaked proposals that were envisaged. The Commission likes it because it closes a loophole, avoiding importation of non-compliant gases from outside of the EC. The aim is to ensure it is only installed by qualified installers. Why? There is a strong environmental reason is to prevent cowboy installation, avoiding the systems you could buy in B&Q, which theoretically could be bought by anybody. But mainly it is aimed at small split systems in air conditioning and some heat pump systems – which are built in factories – and the condensing unit is filled with gas and shipped out. It will be interesting to see how they apply that to the transport sector, and that may ultimately get changed. It doesn’t apply to hermetically sealed equipment, so it won’t apply to domestic refrigerators or small retail displays but anything else that is RAC equipment containing HFCs must be “charged where it is intended to be used”. But packs and condensing units will either need to be retro-filled or replaced by 2020, with R407A or F, or perhaps with the new HFOs.Īnother one of note, and perhaps surprising is the proposed ban on pre-charged units applying from 2017, perhaps – it isn’t entirely clear. The ban will also apply to hermetically sealed equipment, but it is not so often that that is serviced.
You won’t be able to service leaky equipment containing R404A after 2020. These are the gases being targeted by this measure. This means that R404A will be way over the threshold, as will R507. Perhaps the most significant among the other elements for retail is the ban on servicing with high GWP refrigerants – a GWP of 2500 – from 2020. It starts with a modest cut of 7 per cent and then ratchets down to 63 per cent by 2018.īut it is a phase-down, not a phase-out, and it allows for quite a decent chunk at the end.
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The key element is the phase-down of HFCs, starting in 2016 and then undergoing a series of consumption cuts until it ends in 2030 at 21 per cent of the baseline. Ray Gluckman - This event is tremendously well timed as we are in the position of now having some firm Commission proposals on the table, proposals that might be finalised in the next 12 months.Įverything I tell you is what it says in the proposal document, but of course none of this is certain. Ray Gluckman kicked off proceedings with a keynote speech about the F-Gas proposals and the retail sector.
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