The Department for Environment for Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has open a public consultation on introduction of penalty system for F-Gas Regulation breaches.
With refrigerant prices escalating at rates never seen before, the market is waking up to the reality of what the F-Gas quota reductions mean. It remains to be seen if it has grasped the full extent of the first very big reduction in quota coming in 2018. With one major producer announcing they won’t be selling R-404A and R-507 next year and another doubling the price every couple of months, it’s clear that the time has come to stop using R-404A and R-507 and to switch to lower GWP alternatives.
This is a time of rapid change in the refrigeration and cooling industry. The F-Gas Regulation 517-2014 set out to phase down the use of high GWP refrigerants such as R-404A and R-507 and the first impact of the phase down caused by 'quota' restrictions is now being seen. For R-404A and R-507 this is only the start as the real impact will be next year, so now is the time to take action.
F-Gas II, also known as EU Regulation 517/2014, continues to drive change across the cooling industry. With a large reduction in the amount of refrigerant allowed to be placed on the market in 2018, refrigerant manufacturers have been developing and launching new lower GWP refrigerants that will help meet the market’s demand for refrigerants and achieve its regulatory obligations. With this shift in new products being used and the regulatory demands on leak checking, it’s also important to ensure effective leak detection technology is in place.
You know the page: you click on a link, but instead of getting the site you want, an error pops up indicating that the requested page is not available. Something along the lines of '404 Not Found'.
Well a similar message could soon start to appear with Refrigerant 404A. If you haven’t noticed recently, the price has been escalating dramatically since the turn of the year. One producer has already applied four increases since the start of the year with their price now double what it was only a few months earlier. With other producers doing the same, the clear intimation is that prices will continue to keep increasing if demand does not drop off.
FETA have published a guide to A2L refrigerants and their use in Refrigeration, Air Conditioning and Heat Pump applications.
From January 2017 all new cars must use a refrigerant with a GWP below 150, in line with EU MAC Directive. R-1234yf low GWP refrigerant offers the ideal solution.
