On 25 and 31 January members of the Clean Cooling Coalition (CCC) served as panellists on two expert hearings organised by the Greens/EFA at the European Parliament in Brussels to showcase ambition to EU policy makers discussing the revision of the EU F-gas Regulation.
The event, led by MEP Bas Eickhout, a Dutch Green and main negotiator of this dossier, included panellists representing ATMOsphere, GEA Heating and refrigeration, Mirai Intex and pbx from the Coalition.
The first event focused on refrigeration, where ATMOsphere’s Marc Chasserot depicted the evolution of the technology and the market penetration of natural refrigerants over the last decades.
Dimitrios Dalavouras from General Refrigeration, a contractor based in Greece, then supported the merits of natural refrigerants in commercial and industrial applications, correcting disinformation of transcritical systems running with carbon dioxide (R744) not performing efficiently in warm climates. Karsten Mundt from Konvekta followed suit: the representative of the German OEM reported on the benefits of decoupling from f-gases in mobile air-conditioning systems used in buses and other vehicles of larger dimensions than passengers cars.
Dominik Radler of pbx, an Austrian OEM of transport refrigeration systems running with natural refrigerants, then argued that f-gases are no longer needed in transport refrigeration as the whole cold chain is now fully actionable without these substances. Finally, Vladyslav Tsyplakov from Mirai Intex reported that the exemption for low temperatures in stationary refrigeration is no longer needed because other more climate- and environment-aligned technologies can reach the same temperatures efficiently and are already available on the market.
On 31 January experts working in the field of heat pumps running with natural refrigerants convened at the European Parliament in Brussels for the second expert hearing.
ATMOsphere’s Chasserot reported on the progress of heat pump systems charged with natural refrigerants, highlighting that the technology is available for all systems and capacities and that market penetration is happening fast. Menno Van der Hof from TripleAqua informed attending policymakers of the technical feasibility of natural refrigerants in different kind of heat pumps, with insights drawn from his work as a consultant for numerous Europe-based manufacturers. He was followed by Daniel Colbourne, a RACHP international expert, who alleviated policy makers’ technical concerns on the use of natural refrigerants in split air-to-air systems. Stephan Kolb from Viessman shared his company’s commitment to deliver millions of hydronic heat pumps charged with natural refrigerants to support the objectives of REPower EU.
Kenneth Hansen from GEA Heating and refrigeration elaborated on heat pumps with higher capacities using ammonia/NH3 (R717), an efficient natural refrigerant that is increasingly deployed in district heating and cooling systems, an important technology to decarbonise these energy-intensive sectors.
Finally, the Coalition and its members have joined forces with other Europe-based companies and entities signing a statement presented at ATMOsphere Europe Summit 2022 calling for future-proof policy design in tackling fluorinated substances across all RACHP applications, with particular attention on heat pumps.
Next steps
Negotiations within the European Parliament will continue in the coming months, with the vote in the Environment, Health and Food Safety Committee (ENVI) expected in March.
Afterwards, following the plenary vote in Parliament, the negotiations will move to the trialogue stage between the Council, the European Commission and the Parliament.
