Last week saw another successful leg of our R22 Phase Out awareness campaign. Aintree, Liverpool was the venue for the Seminar and there must have been interest as we had a full house.
We were joined by Mark Hughes of DuPont and Tim Cheng of Mitsubishi Electric and again gave 3 different view points from the industry.
Mark presented DuPont’s view on the R22 phase out and looked at how the ISCEON Range of replacement refrigerants can be used as a short term replacement when virgin R22 is banned at the end of 2009. Mark also looked into the future and assured those attending that DuPont are committed to maintaining air conditioning equipment new and old using there full range of HFC refrigerants. They also advised that looking to the future they are in constant discussions with all major manufacturers and would be at the forefront of any testing and development. With this they could plan a phase out route in the same way as they have with R22.
Tim spoke of Mitsubishi Electric’s determination to improve on the energy use produced by the air conditioning. Mitsubishi are at the forefront of replace technology designed to minimise disruption when replacing R22 equipment, by using the existing pipe work whilst still offering the high efficiencies of new equipment and up to a 5 year warranty.
Mitsubishi see the importance of offering support at this time to ensure that all end users have the right advise and select their new equipment based on life cycle costs rather than just capital expenditure. Why, to make sure that over the life of the equipment, less CO2 is emitted, meaning less energy is used, leaving more money in your pocket.
I finished off with our general overview of the 3 options available:
Do Nothing – As part of a planned approach we encourage end users to leave no critical plant operating on R22 to release budgets for more critical areas. We also spoke of banking refrigerants to maintain operation on many R22 systems.
Replace Equipment – If there are budgets available, this is still the best option to minimise risk and failure in critical cooling applications. Using the Audit tool from Mitsubishi can give estimated payback periods, sometimes 1 to 2 years.
Replace the Refrigerant – With systems operating in the field for over 3 years we believe this is a viable option to overcome R22 phase out. This is only short term though as Manufacturers are stopping supporting many R22 products from 2012 onwards.
At the close we had a vibrant Q&A session. the longevity of HFC refrigerants were discussed and what is coming in the future. It was agreed that although natural refrigerants will be the long term solution the energy efficiency produced using R410a is a long way off being matched and in the commercial sector the use of HFC’s will be around for the foreseeable future.
The question was raised on how much CO2 could be saved by changing 10,000 kg of R22 Plant – we could answer this at the time but when we do we will post it on our Journal.
The warranty associated with the use R422D was also discussed and it appears that Temperature Control are the only company offering a warranty when using replacement refrigerants. Why is this, well we’re in this for the long term and see the use of replacement refrigerants as a stepping stone to allow budgets to be secured to eventually change the equipment. As one of the largest installers in the UK, we would be more than happy to provide new equipment, however we do live in the real world and know that this isn’t always achievable. This is why we offer a warranty on replacement refrigerants to give you the confidence to use them.
for more details on the warranty – /blog/warranty-do-you-want-piece-of-mind.html
We would like to thank all those who attended and the support from DuPont and Mitsubishi Electric.
For more assistance on R22 please contact r22support@temperaturecontrol.co.uk
