Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ProCold (ProCold: Empowering stakeholders to deliver highly energy efficient professional cold products)

Teaser

Empowering stakeholders to deliver highly efficient professional cold products20 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...

Summary

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: there are 12 times less plug-in commercial and professional product in use than household models, but the household sector only uses 2 times more energy (84 TWh/a against 43 TWh/a). Large reduction of energy consumption and CO2 emissions are possible, through well targeted and well implemented regulations.
The EU has acknowledged this situation: first regulations for professional products were adopted in 2015 while work is under progress for commercial products. 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 plug-in refrigerated storage cabinets, refrigerated display cabinets, beverage coolers, ice cream freezers, vending machines, wine coolers and minibars.

ProCold has 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 will therefore be motivated to take action, i.e. produce / procure / support through policies more energy efficient and climate friendly models.
ProCold works with 5 stakeholder groups, both at the European and at the national levels:
- Public authorities in designing policies and for their procurement policies
- Manufacturers to motivate them to offer more efficient products on the market
- Food and beverage industry who provide the cold appliances in which they sell their own food and beverage products
- Retailers and other direct users (shops, hotels, restaurants and canteens, snack shops, office buildings, etc.) providing space and electricity for the cold professional products, but actually have little information and power in specifying the products to be used.
- Service providers, influencing building users or owners on which models to chose

Work performed

ProCold has five main means of action:

1) It continuously studies the market, identifies the most energy efficient models using the most climate-friendly refrigerants, and publishes this information on-line to increase market transparency. 14 product lists on-line present updated commercial references and technical details of models complying with the Topten selection criteria. 17 updates have been implemented since the start of the project.
2) It participates in policy developments for professional and commercial cold products.
3) It identifies key stakeholders at the European and national levels (In the first half of the project, 559 contacts have been established) and reaches them to disseminate this information, together with tools allowing stakeholders to understand the benefits of energy efficient models:
- Efficient cooling is a hot sales argument for manufacturers and suppliers of energy efficient refrigerated cabinets who benefit from the trend towards energy efficiency, gain competitive advantage, get their best products listed on topten.eu
- Energy efficiency appeals to consumers and hence to customers of the Beverage industry which can meet environmental targets and bring more profit to their customers by reducing their electricity costs.
- Energy efficiency cools costs for Retailers procuring and using energy efficient refrigerated cabinets: they reduce their own electricity costs, meet environmental targets and distinguish their brands.
- Professional buyers that place emphasis on energy efficient refrigerated cabinets meet environmental targets, save on electricity costs and act in an exemplary way.
- Food service businesses, catering industries and hotels that choose energy efficient refrigerated cabinets save on electricity costs, protect the environment, and operate much more economically.
4) It organises a product competition where the best products within 5 categories will be tested in laboratories and showcased at international fairs. Results will be publicised at the Euroshop fair in March 2017 and the HOST fair in October 2017.
5) It presents its activities in the media, specialised press and during professional events and scientific conferences.

Final results

ProCold aims at contacting 1’000 organisations and companies and provide them with increased skills/capability/competencies on energy issues. The table below reflects specific concrete results yielding to energy savings - actually going beyond the objective of just increasing skills/capability/competencies.
• 23 companies state explicitly to favour Topten products in procurement.
• 8 manufacturers and retailers label online and part of them in print their products with Topten logo and push so their customers to select most energy efficient products.
• 72 organisations favour models with green refrigerants - this issue is well received by the stakeholders.
• 55 Companies go for closed cabinets, in fact a key measure to save energy.

The following table summarizes the results (as of September 2016):
Contact established / Declaration of Topten products / Procurement with Topten / Topten labelling online / Favouring green refrigerants / Favouring closed cabinets
Total 601 60 23 8 72 55

The product lists have progressed since the start of the project, which is an indicator of a positive impact of ProCold on the market: from 85 models from 10 brands at the start of the project, to 136 models from 25 brands. The selection criteria were tightened in July 2016, which shows the improvement of the market.
Around 3’000 products got a rebate in Switzerland for Topten models, showing a strong interest from manufacturers and procurers to go for energy efficient products (Topten products might account for over 5% of the Swiss market).

The project aims to increase the sales of best available technology (BAT) models. The impact will be strongest in the eight participating countries but also affect the total European market because the targeted actors operate internationally. We expect that at least additional 0.4% of sales will be BAT models chosen over standard models because of project activities (at least 0,8% in participating countries and 0.15% in other countries).
The eight participating countries (Austria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Sweden and Switzerland) account for 49% of EU28+CH population (Eurostat 2013). We assume that EU sales distribute proportional to countries’ population.
The expected triggered primary energy savings of 276 GWh/year during the lifetime of products (8 to 10 years) were calculated based on sales data from the preparatory studies and labelling formulas according to the EU policy documents (adopted or most recent draft available as of late May 2014).

Website & more info

More info: http://www.topten.eu/pro-cold.