The Official Journal of the French Republic has recently published Regulation n.º 2007-737 of May, 7th 2007 on refrigerants and refrigerant leak control, reveals AFCE, the French Refrigeration, HVAC and Environment Alliance (Alliance Froid Climatización Environnement). This legislation is the result of rewriting the 1992 and 1998 existing legislation and was made possible through the cooperation between all those involved in the refrigeration & air conditioning industry and the Environment and Industry Ministries in adapting it to EC Regulation n.° 2037-2000, on CFC and HCFC, and the most recent EC Regulation on F-Gas n.º 842-2006, on HFC and PFC, greenhouse effect gases used, among others, in refrigeration and air conditioning equipment.

AFCE, which actively prepared this document, is glad to announce this regulation, even if a large number of its measures can’t be implemented at once. Thus, the current registration system shall continue to be used until the 4th of July 2008, while entities are created that can issue suitable refrigerant handling certifications for technicians. This should happen before July, 4th 2009. Refrigerant distributors, on the other hand, won’t be obliged to provide refrigerants only to certified technicians until the 4th of July 2009. AFCE will organize an information session on every detail of the implementation of these regulations on the 19th September.

Anyway, this new regulation will ensure that refrigerants are used more safely. Its purpose is to drastically reduce the emissions of greenhouse effect gas in the refrigeration and air conditioning industry, which also contributes to the current world climate change.

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