Europe’s HVACR industry is up in arms after the European Parliament’s Environment Committee voted to support a revised F-gas plan with ambitious targets to accelerate the transition to natural refrigerants.
The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety (ENVI) voted to support the plan by 64 votes to eight, with seven abstentions.
The revised plan includes a ban on F-gases in self-contained air conditioning and heat pump equipment from 1 January 2026; single split systems including fixed double duct systems containing less than 3kg of F-gases from 1 January 2027 and split systems up to 12kW from 1 January 2028.
The new plan also restricts split systems between 12kW and 200kW to refrigerants with a GWP under 750 by 1 January 2028 and a total ban on F-gases in split systems of more than 200kW by 2028.
The vote also calls for a steeper trajectory from 2039 onwards to phase down HFCs, with the goal of a zero HFC target by 2050.
While industry labelled the revised plan as unrealistic the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) welcomed the news.
The EIA said industry criticism was just rhetoric from industry alliances dominated by multinational companies seeking to profit from the prolonged use of HFCs.
The European Partnership for Energy and the Environment (EPEE) said the vote was self-defeating and would undermine Europe’s carbon neutrality goals.
The EPEE has undertaken modelling of its own for the HFC phase down which is available on the organisation’s web site https://epeeglobal.org/
Just last month an alliance of 14 leading European associations and global partners active in the European market representing industries manufacturing, servicing and installing heating, cooling, refrigeration and foam insulation solutions called on the European Parliament’s Environment Committee to reject the plan.