FANS What do EU
ecodesign regulations mean for the UK?
Geoff Lockwood, technical director of ebm-papst UK, chair of both the ISO and BSI technical committees for fans discusses the upcoming ecodesign revisions.
F
ans have a signifi cant impact on our environment. Electric motor systems are responsible for 45% of the world’s total electricity consumption, of which electric motor driven fans consume 19%. Ecodesign regulation for fans published in 2011 and adopted by the UK has had a signifi cant infl uence on reducing their impact. It is estimated that this regulation had reduced energy consumption within Europe by 150 TWh between its publication and until 2020. This regulation has been revised and it is anticipated that it will be adopted by the European Commission in the fi rst half of 2024. It will set lower minimum energy effi ciency limits, further reducing their impact. It adds new requirements that tackle circular economy aspects. Will this new revision be adopted by the UK Government? How far do the new requirements impact circular economy of fans and what do the new regulations mean for fan manufacturers? The draft revised regulation corrects some anomalies. Jet fans are within the scope of the current regulation, but the methodology to measure their thrust and calculate the
effi ciency is not. As an interim solution the EU Commission publish in 2011 an offi cial FAQ document to explain that as a ‘consequence, jet fans cannot be addressed with the available standards and cannot comply with the requirements set in Regulation 327/2011’. This is resolved within the draft revision by including a methodology and a minimum effi ciency limit. Circulating fans (large comfort fans) are also within the scope of the regulations, and as with jet fans, the method of measurement and determination of effi ciency is not, the same problem exists. In this case the solution is to state that they are excluded. There are some concerns how they are defi ned, and this still needs to be resolved.
The fan industry successfully argued that they meet requirements where space is at a premium, and that use of ‘more effi cient’ fans does not actually deliver lower consumption.
The current regulation introduced a new term called
‘not-fi nal-assembly’, one that was not welcomed by the fan industry. The term means a fan where the performance has been calculated from its component parts, instead of those that are placed on the market as complete, and the performance directly measured. The term has been deleted from the current draft and only direct measurement is allowed. To assist those building large machines the draft allows the performance to be determined from scaled models. New limits were published at the Consultation Forum in April 2015. At the time the levels were seen as challenging, but generally accepted by the fan industry. The exceptions
16 January 2024 •
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