Energy Efficiency Workshop in Vienna on 9-10 July 2018

The last two days, our team was attending the “Workshop on energy efficiency opportunities while phasing-down Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs)” organized by the UN Ozone Secretariat prior to the 40^th meeting of the Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol.

The phasing down of HFCs was agreed upon in the Kigali Amendment to the Montreal Protocol in 2016, recognizing the climate impacts of HFCs. During the 2 days’ workshop, solutions for increasing energy efficiency in different appliances were presented and discussed. Projects, findings and lessons learned under high ambient temperature conditions in A5 countries (i.e. countries listed in Article 5 of the Montreal Protocol) were presented and focussed on refrigerants and different application sectors. Energy efficiency measures should be integrated in three ways: Firstly, within the application by using different refrigerants, developing new technology or improving containment to avoid leakage. Secondly, in capacity building for technicians on installation and servicing. Experts stated that around 20 – 30% of energy consumption could be saved by educating technicians and consumers in how to maintain and use installed equipment properly. Thirdly, adapting the environment of the appliance to increase efficiency (the systems approach) e.g. through improved insulation of buildings etc. also represents an important field of action. District cooling projects from Abu Dhabi and Egypt) were presented as particularly energy efficient.

Dr. Brian Motherway (International Energy Agency) projected the future increasing energy demand of air conditioning could be halved until 2050 (6200 TWh baseline scenario against 3500 TWh in the energy efficiency scenario coming from around 2000 TWh in 2016) if efficiency measures would be implemented at large scale.
Several speakers elaborated on the links between energy efficiency, the selected refrigerant and reducing leakage in different applications. Further sessions focussed on financing programs, policies addressing smaller refrigeration, air conditioning and heat pump systems as programs for setting Minimum Energy Performance Standards (MEPS) and energy labelling. The last session treated the role of larger systems: Toby Peters (University of Birmingham, UK) underlined the key importance of the cold chain in the food sector as post-harvested food loss is the first emitter of CO₂ in the world: up to 50% of harvested food is going off because of a lack in the cold chain in developing countries.

More information and all presentations: http://conf.montreal-protocol.org/meeting/workshops/energy-efficiency/presentations/SitePages/Home.aspx