Decarbonising heating and cooling – the role of F-Gases

EPEE represents the Refrigeration, Air-Conditioning and Heat Pump industry in Europe. Founded in the year 2000, EPEE’s membership is composed of over 50 member companies as well as national and international associations from three continents (Europe, North America, Asia). With manufacturing sites and research and development facilities across the EU, which innovate for the global market, EPEE member companies realize a turnover of over 30 billion Euros, employ more than 200,000 people in Europe and also create indirect employment through a vast network of small and medium-sized enterprises such as contractors who install, service and maintain equipment.

EPEE supports the EU F-Gas Regulation as an essential tool to reduce emissions of F-gases. To tackle the global climate change crisis, F-gases such as HFCs, must be contained, their consumption phased down and their emissions reduced as much and as fast as possible. Against that background EPEE welcomes many provisions in the draft revision of the EU F-gas Regulation, which is currently discussed in Brussels, in particular those which extend requirements on leak checks, containment, reporting and certification and training. But the industry also has strong concerns about the potentially negative impact of the proposal on the required growth of climate-friendly and fossil-fuel-free equipment in the heating and cooling sector. This refrigerant transition must consider that by far the biggest contribution of our industry to the European Green Deal is to move heating and cooling away from fossil fuel use and towards efficient heat pump equipment based on fossil-fuel-free electricity. EPEE modelling shows that abated CO₂ in 2050 from heat pumps systems will be 47 times greater than their direct (i.e. refrigerant) and indirect (i.e. electricity) greenhouse gas emissions.