Europe

Pre-charged equipment exported outside the European Union is included in the quota system set up by F-Gas Regulation 2014/517. A consequence is that the quota available in Europe is reduced by those exported. The Commissioner Cañete has recently reiterated that the exemption in article 15 applies to bulk gases only.

On 26 March, the Commission hosted the first stakeholder meeting for the second phase of the development of the Smart Readiness Indicator (SRI). The meeting aimed at presenting stakeholders with an overview of the previous study focused on the calculation methodology, and to present how the study team aims to structure this study on the practical implementation.

On 26 March 2019, the project websites were updated with the Task 1 to Task 7, including a reissue of the Task 1 and 2, which were released in February 2019.  The second and last stakeholder meeting will take place in April 2019, and the study should be finalised before the summer break. 

With Article 19a, the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive 2018/844 (EPBD) introduced the requirement to perform a feasibility study on the possible introduction of inspections of stand-alone ventilation systems before the end of 2019.

After eight conferences in Europe, the 9th International conference on Energy Efficiency in Domestic Appliances and Lighting (EEDAL) took place in Irvine, California, USA. EEDAL is becoming an international event and the 10th EEDAL conference will take place in China, co-organised with the China National Institute of Standardization.

The European Commission initiated this study to analyse and develop a potential scoring system to rate the ability to repair and - where relevant - upgrade products. The Commissions’ Joint Research Centre in Seville executed this study during the past 12 months. The scoring system was tested for laptops, vacuum cleaners, and washing machines. 

The European Commission monitors and reports on the impact of Ecodesign and Energy Labelling measures, with a view to improve its understanding of the impacts over time and to fine-tune forecasting and reporting. The interest for the Eurovent members relates to forecast that is presented in the 2018 report and how this may affect ongoing and new review studies. 

The Eurovent Association’s Product Groups ‘Air Handling Units’ and ‘Residential Air Handling Units’ (covering non-residential and residential ventilation units respectively) have released Position Papers concerning the ongoing review of Commission Regulation (EU) No 1253/2014 (Ecodesign requirements for ventilation units). The papers include clarifications and amendments to the regulatory text, as well as in-depth suggestions for improvement concerning air filters, leakages, humidity recovery, control systems, labelling aspects, and many other issues of high relevance.

On 19 March 2019, the UK Government Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy has released two new guidance documents that replace the earlier versions from September 2018. The two guidance documents from the UK perspective are: ‘Placing manufactured goods on the UK market if there’s no Brexit deal’ and ‘Placing manufactured goods on the EU internal market if there’s no Brexit deal’.

In February 2019, the European Commission has initiated the Review Study on Ecodesign and Energy Regulations on Ventilation Units. The review is being carried out by VHK and managed by Vito. It will include the review of existing Regulations EU 1253/2014 (Ecodesign requirements for ventilation units) and EU 1254/2014 (energy labelling of residential ventilation units).