The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have launched two new Model Quality and Performance Guidelines for Off-Grid Refrigerating Appliances and Model Regulation Guidelines for Energy-Efficient Ceiling Fans
These guidelines were launched on October 22, 2023 in Nairobi, Kenya, during the 35th meeting of the Parties to the Montreal Protocol. These guidelines are the latest in the series of Model Regulation Guidelines that have been developed by UNEP’s United for Efficiency initiative (U4E) in partnership with Berkeley Lab.
The guidelines were developed by a global panel of experts, and ACTS through Engineer Isaiah Omolo provided some input. The ACTS Executive Director, Prof Tom Ogada lend his voice at the launch lauding the importance of the guidelines, emphasizing the need to deploy energy-efficient and durable off-grid refrigeration equipment that can help to improve the livelihoods of many communities in Kenya.
“Deploying energy-efficient and durable off-grid refrigeration equipment can help to improve the livelihoods of many communities in Kenya to ensure they keep their food and medicines fresh, as well as enabling beverage and food retail providers and fishers to better commercialize their products,” he said.
The voluntary guidelines are intended to inform market transformation efforts in developing and emerging economies that support the adoption of new off-grid refrigerating appliances with recommended parameters for quality assurance, energy efficiency, and use of refrigerants and foam-blowing agents with a lower global warming potential (GWP) than typical legacy refrigerants. Prior guidelines include room air conditioners, domestic refrigerating appliances and commercial refrigeration equipment that have already been deployed in South-East Asia and Southern African countries.
Approximately 3.6 billion people are at medium or high risk contending with extreme and inadequate options to preserve nutritious food due to inadequate access to cooling from fans and other sources, and lack of refrigeration.
Ceiling fans enhance thermal comfort at a lower cost and environmental impact compared to air-conditioning with a typical power consumption of less than 90 watts compared to 1,500 watts for popular air conditioners. Off-grid refrigeration has a crucial role in safeguarding health and well-being, and in enhancing services offered by small-scale vendors.
As of 2022, 775 million people worldwide still lacked access to electricity, of which more than 80 per cent were in rural areas. It is critical to drastically scale-up the off-grid refrigeration market to meet the needs of this massive, underserved segment. The new Guidelines provide recommended scope, definitions, test procedures, energy efficiency and other considerations which can be applied in market transformation programmes in developing and emerging economies.
The off-grid refrigerator guidelines were developed with funding support from the UK Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs and the Clean Cooling Collaborative (CCC). CCC also supported the Ceiling Fan Guidelines development.
