CFC Replacements Near Halfway Mark

According to a recent survey conducted by the Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Institute (ARI), Arlington, Va., U.S. building owners are expected to just about reach the halfway point in the replacement of comfort-cooling chillers that use chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)—the refrigerants banned in 1995 from production in the U.S.

By the end of 2001, approximately 40,560 of the 80,000 CFC chillers that were in service in the early 1990s will still use CFCs. Last year, 3,235 CFC-chiller replacements took place and 913 CFC chillers were converted to non-CFC refrigerants.

At the current pace, roughly 33,000 CFC chillers will still be in use by the beginning of 2004, and it will take at least until the end of the decade to eliminate all chillers using CFC-11 and CFC-12, the two most widely used CFC refrigerants. The study also notes that this rate of replacement has been slower than what was expected when the production ban was announced.

CFC chiller owners today must rely on stockpiled virgin CFC refrigerants, or used refrigerant—from chillers taken out of service—that is reclaimed to meet purity requirements of ARI standard 700. Non-CFC chillers use the hydrochlorofluorocarbon (HCFC) refrigerants, approved by the Environmental Protection Agency.