The importance of training and certification on alternative refrigerants for the success of the F-Gas regulation

The new F-Gas regulation text whose draft was presented on April 5th is stressing the role of "alternative" (not patented) gases to work for decarbonisation and climate impact reduction. Most of them are flammable, explosive, toxic, dangerous (pressure in plant three/four time more than fluorinated gases).

Most of the producers are worried about the lack of readiness of their maintenance networks in taking care of these new solutions and their safety and efficiency consequences. The actual and recordable level of competence about these issues has not yet been defined throughout education and certification programmes and this means that people operating with these gases are not sure to be able to cope with the issues, dangers and risks embedded in the use of them.

Any user MUST be aware and skilled in manipulating them, for both his safety and the environment. Efficiency is a further goal, in a moment when energy cost is running over the worst forecasts. As per now, the presence of different law texts such as F-Gas and EcoDesign means that operators must be able to match two different scopes and guidelines and obtain a sort of unique protocol for their daily work.

Let's focus on the NEED of education about "alternatives", in order to have an environmentally respectful, efficient and safe HVAC&R landscape. But at the same time let’s put emphasis on the real need of a coherent and “one-folded” text governing the whole matter, so to enable workers to be sure about the rules they have to accomplish to.