International online conference - The Future of Air Conditioning - Programme day 1

The conference streched over two exciting days and covered a wide range of topics focusing on applications using natural refrigerants. Here, you can view the programme for the first day of the conference as well as get a few highlights from the speakers presentations.

If you want to take a closer look at the presentations, click here.

Welcome and introduction 
Held by Marc Chasserot, CEO, shecco

"At the global level, the EU has been the leader to push the industry forward with what it’s known as the F-gas regulation. Looking into 2021-22, the F-Gas regulation will be reviewed a second time. There is a clear opportunity for the EU to focus on AC tech and be ambitious with regards to target GWPs."

Keynote 
Iain Campbell, Senior Fellow, Rocky Mountain Institute | The Global Cooling Prize

“When you launch something like this, there's always the question ‘does the industry want to play’? And then what we realized was, industry really wanted to play.“

Q&A at the conference:

"Is it the prize money what's driving that?
"No, it's not. They want to show us what they can do, and this has become a matter of pride. When we announced the finalists on November 19, one of the finalist had 18 full time engineers working on this challenge.”

Market trends 
Ilana Koegelenberg, Market Development Manager, shecco | Natural Refrigerants in HVAC: Pathway to a Sustainable Future 

"What can we do today? All stakeholders have a role to play and can lead with example."

"We are not starting completely from scratch, a lot of research has been done, we just heard about the Global Cooling Price, China has converted 18 production lines to R290, the Indian company Godrej has sold 650+K R290 split type RAC systems, GIZ is doing training in several countries around the world… There are a lot of things going on in AC!"

The Danish story 
Moderator: Christian Heerup, Business Manager, Refrigeration, Danish Technological Institute

Mikkel Aaman Sørensen, Head of Section – Chemicals Department, Ministry of Environment and Food of Denmark | Lessons Learned: Policy Measures on F-Gasses:

“The steepness in the phase-out of HFCs in Denmark and the EU is more or less the same. In Denmark it just happened some years earlier, so it shows that if we could achieve that in Denmark, it can still be done in the EU.” 

Christian Heerup, Business Manager, Refrigeration, Danish Technological Institute | Policy Measures on F-Gasses: How did we respond?

Policy Panel 
Moderator: Marc Chasserot, CEO, shecco

Bente Tranholm-Schwarz, DG Clima, European Commission | EU F-Gas Policy: Promoting More Climate Friendly AC:

"We are now in a different situation than where we were when we did the proposal in 2012: we have a higher climate ambition, the Kigali amendment to the Montreal protocol, the technology developments. We want to recast the regulation taking into account all these aspects. How long will this take? It’s difficult to say, but there are many climate related proposals coming at the same time."

Barbara Gschrey, Policy Advisor and Managing Director, Öko-Recherche | Current Work on Stationary AC:

"The HFC phase down is recognized as a key driver in the development of new technical solutions,”

Dr. Daniel de Graaf, Scientific Assistant, German Environment Agency (UBA) | Supporting the Use of Natural Refrigerants in Air Conditioning:

"The Blue Angel is the oldest and most ambitious ecolabel in the world. This ecolabel can be applied to 150 product groups, and one of them is room AC,"

Francesco Scuderi, Deputy Secretary General, Eurovent | EU Climate Neutrality Strategy:

“The F-gas regulation plays a very important role in achieving the climate neutrality strategy and so does our industry,”

Clean Cooling Incentives Session 
Moderator: Michael Garry, Editor in Chief – Accelerate Magazine, shecco

Toby Peters, Professor in Cold Economy, University of Birmingham / Director, Centre for Sustainable Cooling | Doing Cold Smarter: Clean Cooling:

"Given the size of the societal and climate challenges we face, we need to go further, faster. We have to deliver the ambition of Clean Cooling."

Asbjørn Vonsild, Consultant, Vonsild-Consulting | Traditional HFC Use – [when] Will it Stop?:

“Traditional HFCs will disappear from the market eventually, but a quick change is necessary. The cost of acting slow can be very expensive, especially for system owners, and it can damage the environment for the next 15 to 25 years.” 

Anna Braune, Director of Research and Development, German Sustainable Building Council (DGNB) | Cooling-Incentives for Passive Design and Natural Refrigerants in the DGNB System:

"Why don't we pay somebody to come into the building at 3 or 4 in the morning to open the windows to use natural cooling?"