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comply with the Minimum Energy Performance Standard or MEPS for Seasonal Space Cooling Energy Efficiency or SSCEE.
Why is this important for end users? The Ecodesign Directive is pushing manufacturers to develop products that utilise the latest efficient technology to enable the consumer to minimise their energy costs. It is important that an end user is supplied with a product that is compliant with the relevant Ecodesign metric for their application, to ensure that product lifecycle costs are minimised. For example, a product designed for a medium temperature process application may not be operating as efficiently in a comfort application compared to a chiller designed specifically for comfort cooling.
What is there to help consumers make an informed decision?
The great thing about the Ecodesign Directive is that manufacturers now have a clear obligation to inform consumers about the efficiency of their products, which all helps contractors and specifiers to better explain product and system efficiencies to an end user, and to put together quotes based on efficiency.
All manufacturers are required to publish the energy performance of their products against criteria specified by the Ecodesign Directive in their instruction manuals on the free access areas of their websites. By making this information freely available it allows an end user to make an informed choice when comparing products from two different manufacturers, using the standard performance metrics specified by the Ecodesign Directive. Through the use of standardised, reliable and application–based energy performance ratios, users will be able to make better and more informed decisions, which take into account 75% of the total life cycle costs as opposed to focusing on
ECODESIGN
capital costs alone.
What does the Ecodesign Directive mean for manufacturers? Should it be seen as a positive thing for the industry? The efficiency requirements of the Ecodesign Directive have focused manufacturers towards optimising the components used in their systems by virtue of more efficient fans, heat exchangers and compressor combinations. It can also lead to the requirement for larger units in order to accommodate heat exchangers with greater surface area, for more efficient heat transfer. This, in turn, is inevitably leading to initial increased capital costs for the end user. However, the long-term cost savings offset this.
The Directive should be largely accepted as a positive step towards safeguarding a sustainable future for the industry.
The Directive has focused manufacturers on developing innovative high performance products, thereby providing for the reduction of both greenhouse gas emissions and environmental impact of the product throughout its life cycle.
How do the new metrics compare to the longstanding industry-standard ESEER for chillers?
The SSCEE metric is very similar to the ESEER. However, instead of the EERs at each ambient temperature being weighted via coefficients, they
are
instead weighted in hours spent at a particular ambient temperature over the course of a year, based on a reference table for the European cooling season for comfort chillers. The standby power consumption for the chiller is also taken into account.
The SEPR metric utilises 12/7°C water temperatures at full load like the SSCEE metric, although the load only reduces to a minimum of 80% to be more representative of a process application.
Lower ambient temperatures are also taken into account, unlike SSCEE.
Which metric does my chiller need to comply with if it is to be used for both comfort and process cooling? Where an application has dual purpose, the comfort metric, SSCEE, takes priority.
I would really urge end users to get ahead and ensure they embrace compliant comfort and process cooling equipment sooner rather than later. Not only will this lead to a significant reduction in running costs, but it will go a long way to ensuring their site is operating as efficiently and sustainably as possible for years to come.
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