Empowering stakeholders to deliver highly efficient professional cold products
20 years ago, the first EU regulations for cold products in the domestic sector came into force: today, on the energy label, A+ is the lowest class admitted on the market. Although it cannot always compare directly, in the professional and commercial sector, cold products seem to be far less efficient: in 2015 there were 12 times less plug-in commercial and professional product in use than household models, but the household sector only used 2 times more energy (84 TWh/a against 43 TWh/a). Depending on product categories, savings of 50 to 70% could be reached through well targeted and well implemented regulations.
The EU has acknowledged this situation: first regulations for professional products were adopted in 2015 and work is under progress for commercial products, though it was delayed. Together, these product categories are the first professional products covered by the Ecodesign and Labelling Directives. As this regulating process is new to a sector in which procurement chains are complex and split incentives are common, all stakeholders need to be accompanied – The ProCold activities have been developed to support all stakeholders active in this sector, and specifically cover plugged-in refrigerated storage cabinets, refrigerated display cabinets, beverage coolers, ice cream freezers, vending machines, wine coolers and minibars.
ProCold had the objectives of gathering, checking and disseminating neutral information on products’ energy consumption, on refrigerants’ global warming potential, and on saving potentials depending on products. Stakeholders were therefore motivated to take action, i.e. produce / procure / support through policies more energy efficient and climate friendly models.
