The results of a new study sponsored by refrigerants manufacturer DuPont show that 65 percent of cooling installations in nine key EU markets (United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Spain Italy, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Poland) continue to function on HCFC refrigerant gases, raising questions about the level of preparedness in the market for the EU ban on virgin HCFCs. The ban, based on EU legislation introduced in 2000 following on from the Montreal Protocol, will be introduced from January 2010.

 

Spanning across industry sectors representing the largest users of refrigerants, the survey’s respondents use various types of cooling installations, all of which still contain significant banks of HCFCs, ranging from 57 percent of chillers (lowest) to 76 percent of air conditioning installations (highest). Although awareness levels of the legislation are high – 90 percent of respondents claimed to be aware of the impending ban – the large banks of HCFCs that remain suggest that this has not been coupled with a sense of urgency to ensure compliance; of those who have not yet taken action, 17 percent claim to have no intention to do so. For companies that are reliant on refrigeration, delayed action – or inaction - can pose a threat to business. The large number of remaining HCFC banks means that as more and more businesses begin to react to the legislative imperatives in the run-up to 2010, there will be a significant strain on contractor services. Furthermore, manufacturers are expected to scale down their production of HCFCs from mid-2009. These twin factors threaten to create a bottleneck, incurring costs for businesses that delay their response.

 

A number of HCFC users intend to wait for the ban on recycled HCFCs to be introduced in 2015, in the belief that there will be a sufficient supply of reclaimed R22. However, given the high cost of the recycling process, current projections place the availability of recycled R22 at only 15 percent of the amount needed to service remaining installations using HCFCs. DuPont is conducting an informational campaign on the EU ban on HCFCs (www.wakeup2phaseout.eu) to help users understand its implications and the options that are available to them. DuPont has also developed its own solution for cost-effective retrofit of installations in the form of ISCEON HFC Refrigerants, reveals the company’s press release.