Elta Fans has published a comprehensive and easy-to-understand 48-page document entitled “How fans are affected by the ErP Directive.” The Directive was implemented in EU member countries by the European Parliament, on November 20, 2010 and adopts the European Commission's (EC) proposal to widen the scope of the Eco-design Directive 2005/32/EC to include energy-related products.
The aim of the Elta Fans’ document is to offer a straightforward, no-nonsense guide for potential purchasers to understand the implications of the new legislation, now and in the future. Alan Macklin, Technical Manager of the Elta Group, says: “The introduction of mandatory, energy-efficiency legislation is the biggest issue the fan industry has ever faced. Despite its importance, there is still a lack of understanding in many quarters and this document is designed to help dispel the confusion, to cut through the complexity of the legislation and to spell out simply what it means for the industry. I urge anybody involved in specifying fans to get a copy as ignoring or not understanding the legislation is not an option.”
The enormous explosion in global population density and the resultant worldwide shortage in energy, requires reductions in energy consumption throughout the entire life cycle of the fan. The Directive is intended to help in delivering European Union (EU) objectives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, to reduce the adverse environmental impacts of product manufacture and to ensure free trade in energy-using and energy-related products. It goes beyond simple efficiency of energy usage into the entire product-lifecycle and accounts for total lifecycle cost, monitoring efficiency from the mining of raw material right through to end-of-life recycling. The first phase of the new directive becomes mandatory in January 2013 – with the second phase of legislation coming into effect two years later, at the start of 2015.
The significance of the new ErP regulations is that manufacturers such as Elta Fans are now required to review their product range in order to attain new efficiency levels. Inefficient fans are being taken out of production by legislation, in the same way that inefficient, old-style light bulbs are being phased out for energy-efficient ‘compact fluorescent lamps’ (CFLs) as part of the EU’s eco-design for energy-saving products regulations.
Alan Macklin continues – “Although the legislation will not become mandatory until the start of next year, we are working hard to ensure we meet the requirements now. We are members of a number of trade and industry organisations within the ventilation industry so are well aware how critical this is for our business throughout Europe.”
The European Commission has not yet come up with a definitive product list, but ‘energy-related’ products are defined as: “goods having an impact on energy consumption during use". This includes not only all energy-using products, but also energy-saving products
