SWEDEN: More than 40 experts from across Europe have signed a position statement backing what they say is the verified excellent efficiencies of hydrocarbon refrigerants in heat pumps.
The scientists from 24 diverse European universities and investigation institutes argue that hydrocarbons, like propane and isobutane, are “just as excellent, or improved,” than the HFCs and HFOs now underneath danger from the F-gas revision and PFAS ban proposals.
The Posture Paper has been despatched to members of the European Parliament’s Committee on Surroundings, Community Wellbeing and Food Protection (ENVI) and to all Swedish EU MPs in advance of the F-gas revision vote at the finish of this month. The group is led by researchers from Sweden’s KTH Royal Institute of Technologies, jointly with scientists at Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute.
“The favourable thermodynamic and transport properties of propane and other hydrocarbons make them very properly suited as refrigerants,” the assertion suggests. “Based on the qualities, they can be anticipated to give low pressure drops and a system effectiveness as substantial, or even better, than artificial choices. Their superiority is not only theoretically established but is also supported by program effectiveness comparisons carried out by working with 1000’s of products facts for systems from just about the entire EU current market, which use both propane or other refrigerants.”
Sector has warned that the present F-fuel revision proposals present an unrealistic timeline for phase out, risk devices basic safety and performance, significantly impact the vital accelerated warmth pump roll out and jeopardise the EU’s REPowerEU aims. Considerations have also been raised about the scarcity of engineers adequately trained to operate with flammable refrigerants.
Security benchmarks
The researchers settle for the extremely flammable character of hydrocarbon refrigerants an recognise that distinctive safety safeguards should be considered in the layout, throughout services and in the factories where the heat pumps are made.
They insist, nevertheless, that intercontinental protection criteria are already in spot and are regularly remaining improved.
“New standards will most most likely make it possible for a broader use of hydrocarbon refrigerants, as much more thorough protection safeguards are being produced,” they point out. They also point to current get the job done carried out by the Fraunhofer Institute to reduce the refrigerant charge for every kW heating ability in heat pumps.
Availability
In terms of product availability, the experts claim that several hundred designs of hydrocarbon heat pumps from about 48 various makers are already commercially available in Europe and several manufacturers in Europe are already operating on new heat pump models with propane as the refrigerant.
“Going from non-flammable synthetic refrigerants to flammable hydrocarbons necessitates mindful thing to consider of the protection, both equally at the output websites and for the solutions,” they say, including: “A similar transition was manufactured about 30 many years ago, when the complete refrigerator sector switched from working with R12 to isobutane in a time body of 3-5 years.
“Based on this qualifications, a transition time to propane for outside installations of 3-5 yrs and for indoor heat pump of 3-8 decades would seem to be practical, dependent on the different purposes and capacity ranges.”
The team settle for, however, that the modify to propane for indoor warmth pumps is “still challenging” and will almost certainly require much more than a few several years, because of to sophisticated safety regulations and constructing needs.
“Therefore, we argue for the early announcement of clear and bold fade-out dates of synthetic refrigerants, using distinctive development time spans for different product or service courses (indoor/ out of doors/ monobloc/ split/multi-break up/VRF) and software regions (household/commercial/industrial) into account.”