Speaking at a side event to the 23rd meeting of the Parties (MOP23) to the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, one Australian natural refrigerant manufacturer claimed the market share of hydrocarbons in automotive air conditioning (MAC) has risen to ten per cent.
A Hydrocarbons21.com report on the event, titled ‘Natural refrigerants in Article 5 countries’, noted that John Clark, technical advisor at Hy Chill Australia, shared Australia’s experience with using hydrocarbon refrigerants in automotive air conditioning. Hy Chill is a supplier of various pure and blended hydrocarbon refrigerants. It has been selling hydrocarbon refrigerants to the Australian MAC sector since the mid 1990’s, and market share has been trending upward since then.
Hy Chill carried out a market share analysis based on its own sales figures of hydrocarbon refrigerant to both the service sector and vehicle original equipment manufacturers, as well as on data published by the Australian government and the Australian Bureau of Statistics for the year 2010. Accordingly, the market share of hydrocarbons in MAC has risen to 10.9 per cent of the service market and 8.5 per cent of total automotive air conditioning market.
According to Hy Chill, this is quite a success considering regulatory barriers, personal prejudices in the market regarding flammable refrigerants as well as challenges associated with breaking into an established mature market in synthetic refrigerants.
Clark highlighted that the figures were conservative, as they neither account for vehicles manufactured for export nor for hydrocarbon refrigerant suppliers in the Australian market other than Hy Chill.
“Many end users and installers are unaware of the climate benefits of their choice of refrigerant”, noted Clark.
“It is a superior performance that is the main selling point of hydrocarbons, as it has faster pull-down, superior cooling capacity and excels in hot climates and conditions; significant points for Article 5 countries that are now stepping up efforts to phase out HCFCs.”
Clark claimed there is a great opportunity in countries that are transitioning away from HCFCs to “leap frog” HFCs in MACs and go directly to hydrocarbons which will allow them to create carbon emission savings, improve vehicle fuel economy while still improving passenger comfort.
Hy Chill’s experience in the last 15 years reaffirms the safety plus high performance and reliability of hydrocarbons in MACs. There had been approximately 20 million car-user-years without a single cabin fire.