Study

The importance of clean air to the well-being of people and for the protection of industrial equipment has highlighted the critical role of air filter performance. Accurate filter performance prediction plays a significant role in estimating the lifetime of filters by means of investigating particle loading and predicting filter clogging. Filter performance prediction enables would enable facility managers to engineer their maintenance schedule to replace filters on time to reduce energy and operating costs.

November is the time when the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the United Nations (UN) publish their reports. The 2019 reports confirm the trend noted in 2018 that the efforts to improve energy efficiency are slowing down. The studies also mention confirmation that the need for cooling continues to increase, as does the use of electricity. The studies provide background to these evolutions.

Record temperatures are measured in Europe, and with the planet getting hotter due to climate change, similar heatwaves are predicted to happen more frequently. It is useful to revisit some of the recent scientific studies that Eurovent also brought to it members in the past years. Industry may need to reappraise the climatic conditions and test equipment for temperatures that are higher than those in standards and regulation to keep up with market evolutions, also in Europe.

The European Commission initiated this study to analyse and develop a potential scoring system to rate the ability to repair and - where relevant - upgrade products. The Commissions’ Joint Research Centre in Seville executed this study during the past 12 months. The scoring system was tested for laptops, vacuum cleaners, and washing machines. 

The European Commission monitors and reports on the impact of Ecodesign and Energy Labelling measures, with a view to improve its understanding of the impacts over time and to fine-tune forecasting and reporting. The interest for the Eurovent members relates to forecast that is presented in the 2018 report and how this may affect ongoing and new review studies. 

The European Commission has communicated an updated list of European Assessment Documents that can be used to show conformity with the Construction Products Regulation.

The F-Gas industry roundtable, organised by EPEE, brings together at regular intervals stakeholders to discuss progress in implementing the F-gas Regulation. In addition to a report on communication activities the issue of illegal imports of refrigerants was addressed. About 60 stakeholders attended the roundtable.

The Ozone Regulation is transposing the obligations of the Montreal Protocol at European level regarding ozone depleting substances. It is responsible for reducing the use substances such as hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFC) like R22. R410a was a common alternative for R22 because it had no impact on ozone. Due to its high Global Warming Potential of 2088, alternatives are being developed for R410a.

Initiated in 2015 by ESTIF, the European Solar Thermal Industry Federation, and funded by the European Commission, an online tool for calculating solar devices using the SOLCAL method is under development. The test version allows users to try it out and provide feedback about the tool to the LabelPack A+ consortium. This consortium includes Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal and the United Kingdom, where national pilot projects have been developed. The main aim is to provide a tool to calculate the energy label heating packages containing various components, such as boilers, heat pumps, water heaters, storage tanks and solar panels.

On 13 November 2018, IEA issued its World Energy Outlook. The agency is worried about geopolitical factors influencing the energy markets. The outlook publication was preceded in October by two other publications. The one on energy efficiency notes that the efforts to improve efficiency are slowing down. The other addressed cooling and predicts an increase with 10 air conditioners being sold every second until 2050. Improving energy and environmental efficiency for this product will be a significant challenge.