8 years after introduction of legislation, and with only 17 months left before ban, study shows 65% of cooling installations* still use HCFC gases

The results of a new study sponsored by refrigerants manufacturer, DuPont, show that 65% of cooling installations in 9 key EU markets* continue to function on HCFC refrigerant gases, raising questions about the level of preparedness in the market for the EU ban on virgin** HCFCs. The ban, based on EU legislation introduced in 2000 following on from the Montreal Protocol, will be introduced from January 2010.

Spanning across industry sectors representing the largest users of refrigerants, the survey’s respondents use various types of cooling installations, all of which still contain significant banks of HCFCs, ranging from 57% of chillers (lowest) to 76% of air conditioning installations (highest). Although awareness levels of the legislation are high – 90% of respondents claimed to be aware of the impending ban – the large banks of HCFCs that remain suggest that this has not been coupled with a sense of urgency to ensure compliance; of those who have not yet taken action, 17% claim to have no intention to do so.

With approximately 130,000 tons of HCFC gases still in use throughout several million installations across the EU, primarily in the form of R22, tens of thousands of these installations will need to be serviced every week in order to ensure compliance by 2010. For companies that are reliant on refrigeration, delayed action – or inaction - can pose a threat to business. The large number of remaining HCFC banks means that as more and more businesses begin to react to the legislative imperatives in the run-up to 2010, there will be a significant strain on contractor services. Furthermore, manufacturers are expected to scale down their production of HCFCs from mid-2009. These twin factors threaten to create a bottleneck, incurring costs for businesses that delay their response.

A number of HCFC users intend to wait for the ban on recycled HCFCs to be introduced in 2015, in the belief that there will be a sufficient supply of reclaimed R22. However, given the high cost of the recycling process, current projections place the availability of recycled R22 at only 15% of the amount needed to service remaining installations using HCFCs.

HCFC survey results

* Based on a cross-industry study in 9 key EU markets (UK, Ireland, France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands and Poland) between April and June 2008.
** Virgin hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) can be defined as those that have never previously been placed on the market.