Climate Impact of Hydrocarbon-based Refrigeration Technology in India
Jan. 1, 2007
The Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation has approached INFRAS for an estimate of the greenhouse gas abatement resulting from the promotion of hydrocarbon technology in India and the ECOFRIG, HIDECOR and NCCoPP projects. These projects were launched due to the Montreal Protocol and are targeted to phase out CFC consumption of the refrigeration service sector in India by 1st January 2010. The ECOFRIG and HIDECOR projects have already been completed, but the National CFC Consumption Phase-out Plan for the refrigeration Service Sector in India (NCCoPP) runs since March 2004. A special challenge of NCCoPP emerges in addressing the need for retrofitting of existing refrigeration units charged with ozone depleting CFCs and probably even HFC134a. The scientific evidence from the just recently published 4th report of the IPCC confirms that climate change is real and that HFC and HCFC emissions are increasingly contributing to Global Warming. This will raise the pressure to limit the use of HCFCs and HFCs in future for which the RAC trade has to prepare. One key to addressing this challenge will be the retrofit option through hydrocarbon refrigerants. Based on the initiative taken by the NCCoPP partners Godrej & Boyce Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (and also Hindustan Refrigeration Systems) in marketing hydrocarbon refrigerants in India, INFRAS had recently estimated the abatement of GHG from promoting these refrigerants under the ECOFRIG, HIDECOR and NCCoPP project activities. The result shows that for the operational year 2006/2007, the use of hydrocarbon refrigerant led to the abatement of GHG emissions equivalent to almost 40'000 tons of CO2 with a strong tendency to decrease even more.
