Ref Manual Servicing Technicians Unit 01(Environmental impact of refrigeration and air conditioning (rac) systems)
1.1. Introduction Refrigeration, air conditioning and heat pump applications represent the major consumer of halogenated chemical substances used as refrigerants; it is also one of the most important energy sector users in our society today. It is estimated that, on average, for developed countries, the RAC sectors are responsible for 10-20% of electricity consumption. The economic impact of refrigeration applications is significant; estimates indicate 300 million tonnes of continually refrigerating goods, with huge annual electricity consumption, and about US$ 100 billion in equipment investments, where the estimated value of the products treated by refrigeration are about four times this sum. This is one of the reasons why economic impacts of the elimination of refrigerant chemical substances such as CFCs and in the near future HCFCs have been hard to calculate. Although HCFCs had been used since the 1930s, because of their relatively low ozone depleting potential...