INDUSTRY NEWS Inbrief
In a survey of 1,000 UK consumers by Legrand, smart heating and energy controls, security, and gate/ door entry technology are perceived to add most value to a home. The results are detailed in an industry report – Connecting the UK’s Homes.
www.legrand.co.uk
The Building Controls Industry Association (BCIA) has announced changes to two of its Working Groups, with Keith Burnett replacing Karl Walker as Chair of the marketing working group, and Wendy Belfi eld taking over from Rob Wood as the Chair of the skills working group on a temporary basis.
https://bcia.co.uk
The ASERCOM EPEE Symposium at the Chillventa Congress on 10 October 2022 in Nuremberg will highlight the current major challenges the HVAC&R industry is facing in Europe and throughout the world.
www.asercom.org
Panasonic Corporation is investing about €145 million in its Czech plant by the fi scal year ending in March 2026 to strengthen the production of air-to-water heat pumps (A2W), which have been experiencing growing demand in Europe.
www.aircon.panasonic.eu
Stephanie Allchurch, product development manager at Altecnic, has recently been appointed as Chair of the Hot Water Association (HWA).
www.hotwater.org.uk
Baxi Commercial Solutions has released a new guide entitled Schools and the Heat Decarbonisation Challenge with the aim of supporting schools in setting achievable pathways to more sustainable heat.
www.baxi.co.uk
Staff from Vent-Axia have put on their walking shoes to support Childhood Cancer Awareness Month and raised money for Young Lives vs Cancer. Vent- Axia’s support of the charity is part of a group-wide initiative which has raised £3,510 so far this year
www.vent-axia.com
T
CALL FOR URGENT REVIEW OF REFRIGERANT SAFETY PROPOSALS Challenge
he Building Engineering Services Association (BESA) has warned that changes to the rules governing refrigerant gas could increase the risk
of accidents. Revisions to the European F-Gas regulations, which
the UK continues to apply, are expected to signifi cantly increase the amount of fl ammable gas and high-pressure systems used by the refrigeration and air conditioning industry, but BESA is concerned there are not enough trained, competent people able to apply them safely. The UK’s primary competence register REFCOM, which is managed by BESA, said there would be a signifi cant rise in the use of new or ‘alternative’ refrigerants to meet new targets set by the regulators to further reduce the amount of global warming gas available to the sector. REFCOM, which has more than 7,000 registered fi rms
representing over 90% of the marketplace, echoed the concerns of the European contractors’ umbrella body AREA that the proposed changes would put tremendous strain on the industry’s workforce and could lead to unqualifi ed people working with potentially dangerous substances. “The speed of change envisioned by the regulators
will make it impossible for the industry to train up enough competent people in time to work safely with the alternatives like fl ammable hydrocarbons,” said BESA’s head of technical Graeme Fox.
“We are in the process of adopting the most far-reaching regulatory change to building safety in 50 years with the passing of the Building Safety Act, yet this threatens to create a whole new safety challenge that could easily be avoided by adopting a more realistic timetable,” he added. The Association said it accepted the principle of the
proposed changes to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas in circulation, but said measures must be practical both in terms of suitable equipment and the size of the competent workforce. BESA is particularly concerned that the proposed changes will accelerate the adoption of fl ammable refrigerants in smaller air conditioning and heat pump solutions – many of which could be installed in homes. “This could lead to a ‘wild west’ scenario with
untrained installers working on equipment they should not be anywhere near, including carbon dioxide systems which operate under much higher pressures than many installers have experienced,” said Fox. “It could also have unintended consequences for energy
effi ciency and carbon emissions.” BESA also backed AREA’s calls for tighter regulation of
alternative refrigerants by applying existing safe handling rules and by including them in the F-Gas regulation’s leak testing requirements to reduce the risk of accidents.
CIBSE EXPANDS BUILDING SERVICES EMBODIED CARBON CALCULATION METHODOLOGY
C
IBSE is launching an addendum to TM65, the embodied carbon calculation methodology published in 2021. TM65 Embodied carbon in
building services: Using the TM65 methodology outside the UK (TM65LA) is designed to create global consistency on how the embodied carbon of building services equipment can be assessed. TM65 provides a methodology to estimate the life cycle embodied carbon of products used in building services engineering where no environmental product declaration (EPD) is available. Many of the methodology’s inherent assumptions in the 2021 publication are specifi c to the UK. This addendum aims to complement TM65 by defi ning
how local addenda can be developed. As such, it sets out how the methodology can be adapted to be used outside of the UK. It is not a standalone document and cannot be applied without fi rst understanding TM65. To ensure that the CIBSE TM65 methodology is globally
valid and globally consistent, CIBSE supports the creation of local addenda to TM65 that are specifi c to localities outside of the UK. This document aims to assist in the creation of these local addenda.
Primary authors, Louise Hamot and
Clara Bagenal George (Integral Group) said: “The aim is to create global consistency with relevance locally. The TM65 methodology inherently relies on a set of assumptions that might diff er in diff erent countries for supply chain or geographical reasons. This guide sets the rules for creating consistent local addenda. A local addendum can be developed for a continent, a country, a state, a city or a region. The overarching methodology would be the same but applied with local assumptions and local carbon factors.”
6 October 2022
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