REFRIGERANTS
Standards and regulations:
S
tandards and regulations have been an important aspect of the refrigeration, air conditioning and heat pump (RACHP) industry for many years. Regulations such as the ozone protection regulations, and latterly the F-Gas regulations, have been well publicised and largely self-policed within the industry but there are many other regulations and standards which have been in place in one form or another just as long but have been less publicised and often less well observed. After the introduction, in the 1930s, of
fluorocarbon-based refrigerants, which exhibited low toxicity and were essentially non-flammable, it was often seen as less important to refer to standards and regulations because of the inherent low risk that was perceived using these 'safe' refrigerants. The fact is that all commonly used refrigerants are classified as hazardous, and standards and regulations must be followed to try to prevent any accidents from occurring. This has become even more important in
recent years since the realisation that high global warming potential (GWP) refrigerants are contributing to climate change and many of the very low GWP alternatives either have a much higher toxicity, a degree of flammability or explosively high pressure. We have been promoting the use of low GWP refrigerants, many of which have the A2L (lower flammability) safety classification, for over five years, and in many cases it has been very evident that the application and sometimes knowledge of the relevant standards is somewhat lacking. The industry as a whole needs to ensure that
they are aware of what standards and regulations are relevant and, most importantly, apply them to every installation. When talking to potential users of very low GWP options the application of
24 October 2022 •
www.acr-news.com
the EN 378 standard and the Pressure Equipment Safety Regulation (PE(S)R) is often seen as an additional step or consideration but these both apply to any refrigerant and should always be considered. There are many standards and
regulations that apply to the RACHP industry but in the course of my discussions, there are a few particular parts of these that are very important with regard to refrigerant choice, which either do not appear to be well understood or are seen as additional and arduous to comply with.
F-Gas Regulation The current F-Gas regulation has been in place since 2015 and has driven the industry to lower GWP refrigerant options but the carbon dioxide tonnes equivalent (CO2
Te) phasedown
still has a long way to go and most of the ‘easy wins’ have already been implemented. To achieve the final 30% reduction in CO2
Te required under
the current legislation, in many cases it will be necessary to use refrigerants with different safety or physical properties to those previously used. The F-Gas regulation set out timelines that gave the industry time to plan their move away from higher GWP, and whilst larger organisations have done this, there are still many who are just waiting until the higher GWP refrigerant availability becomes difficult with no thought to how to keep the existing equipment operating for its full useful life. Until now, when previous legislation has restricted the use of certain refrigerants there has always been a retrofit option available but this time around it is very unlikely there will be a suitable retrofit option available which will be
keeping your systems operating safely,
but only if you know what they say! This report from Climalife looks at the different sets of regulations and how they fit together.
compliant with other regulations and standards, unless that has been planned at the time of installation.
EN 378 EN 378 covers a number of safety requirements for RACHP systems and applies to systems that are not covered by specific equipment standards e.g. EN 60335-2-40 (AC and Heat pumps) or EN 60335- 2-89 (self-contained plug-in refrigeration units). When considering moving from an A1 safety
class refrigerant to flammable, higher toxicity or higher pressure refrigerant, one of the most important considerations is the impact on refrigerant charge size. This applies to all refrigerants but for many A1 refrigerants it was overlooked, even though in systems running from a central pack with one or multiple small rooms attached, if a refrigerant leak occurred in one of those rooms, it was almost inevitable that the practical limit would be exceeded. As can be seen
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