EcoChill Ask 'Significant Impact or a Load of Hot Air'? Act III

Following on from last two months’ articles on the HFC Phase Down, EcoChill’s Mathew Darby continues:

“California has led the charge in phasing out high GWP refrigerants in line with Europe, and it will be interesting how this is managed given Trump’s policies.  Many have questioned his ability to commit to a coal based economy, given the economic investment opportunities and sunk commercial investment in an emission reduction strategy, one that is showing itself to be one of the fastest job creating sectors in the United States. It is the potential business opportunity that Trump may not be able to turn down.

“As it is, New Zealand (and Australia) will start phasing down HFC’s from 2019  and though Trump may be able to affect the rate of change our governments are committed to the agreement already made. The fact is New Zealand has already supported a trend away from synthetics, as costs have continued to rise under the Emissions Trading Scheme.

“IRHACE, who have been doing a lot of work informing industry of the change, calculate that New Zealand used over 500 tonnes of synthetic refrigerant in the year to May 2015, a 22% increase upon the previous year. Conservative estimates indicate that as much as 70% of refrigerant sales are being used to top up systems that have lost refrigerant through leakage. Estimates are that at current carbon pricing the ETS has added an additional $11 million to the annual wholesale cost of refrigerants, noting that this will increase 33% annually year on year over three years as the 2 for 1 subsidies under current ETS policy are removed.

“This is a clear signal to those industries within New Zealand that rely on refrigeration to start taking notice of the changing landscape and potential bottom line impacts of significant changes such as the phasedown of “F-gas” refrigerants. As a whole the HVAC&R industry in New Zealand has not yet understood the sweeping implications with limited “natural refrigerant” expertise and training and low installation numbers providing limited opportunities to improve this. This is causing providers to push familiar F-gas based systems despite their potential to become cost redundant within their lifetime and at significant long term costs to customers.

A challenge too lies in the perception of the availability of alternative refrigerants. Options are still limited, in particular a number of questions exist about the use of Hydrofluoroolefin’s (HFO’s), in particular HFO1234yf, the HFC alternate that has not yet been registered within New Zealand for use and has no known refrigeration installation in New Zealand.”

To find out more about EcoChill and their natural refrigeration services, please go to http://www.ecochill.co.nz .