HyChill Australia’s general manager, Mario Balen met with the Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dato' Sri Najib Razak, to examine options to reduce the country's carbon footprint.
The meeting, which was held in the Prime Minister's office in Putrajaya, Malaysia, was facilitated by HyChill’s Malaysian partner Dyna Timur and attended by its managing director, Ahmad Nordin.
The purpose of the meeting was to present to the Prime Minister details of joint projects involving the use and supply of hydrocarbon refrigerants to the Malaysian market.
Balen said Malaysia is strongly committed to reducing its carbon footprint and meeting its international obligations under the Montreal, Kyoto and Kigali agreements.
"Shifting the focus from synthetic to natural, and especially hydrocarbon refrigerants will assist Malaysia as a country to achieve and exceed these goals," he said.
It is estimated that Malaysia currently has14 million air conditioning systems, mainly splits charged with R22. Like Australia, Malaysia is scheduled to phase out R22.
"An estimated 60% of the total energy consumption in government office buildings is directed to air conditioning alone," Balen said.
"These systems consume a significant portion of Malaysia’s overall electricity output and are seen as a prime target in reducing the country’s CO2 emissions, both direct and indirect."
During the meeting, Balen said Prime Minister Razak expressed considerable interest in the project, which would, in its second phase involve a local bottling facility.
He said the project has been referred to the Directorate of Energy for further evaluation.
"The director of the department will report back directly to the Prime Minster with his recommendation, following an assessment," Balen said.
"Both Hychill Australia and Dyna Timur are excited about the prospect of the project progressing to the next stage."
If approved, the project will commence in mid-2018 and take three to five years to complete.
"The potential benefits from the projects are enormous – it is estimated that direct emission savings alone resulting from the only first phase of the project could amount to 14 Mt of CO2 displacement, with indirect emission savings reaching millions of tonnes of CO2 displacement annually," Balen said.