Refrigerant Monitoring and Reporting Includes Carbon (CO2) Emissions and Greenhouse Gas Management

In many countries, carbon emissions are required by law to be reported across an organization's entire footprint; hence the coined term "Carbon Footprint. Carbon data and detailed records of energy, fuel, and refrigerant gas consumption fall under regulatory compliance rules and must be reported in paper, and increasingly, electronic format - Globally.

Refrigerant systems use high levels of greenhouse gases, so the EPA established the Climate Registry Protocol for calculating carbon emissions on a regular basis. The international equivalent of this requirement is outlined in the Montreal Protocol and Kyoto Protocol. The main purpose for calculating carbon emissions is to begin reducing the damaging effects that refrigerant gas has on the environment.

Commercial refrigeration and air-conditioning (RAC) systems or heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems operate on refrigerant gas, which is made up of hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and perfluorocarbons (PFCs). When broken down, these substances contain carbon, chlorine, fluorine and hydrogen.

These gases are major ozone depleting substances. By calculating carbon emissions, government environmental agencies will be able to better understand the situation. Companies who fail to report their carbon emissions will be issued a substantial fine.

Various carbon emissions reporting protocols have emerged from the EPA, ISO, World Resource Institute, and Climate Registry protocols. All of these documents define in great detail how organizations must collect data, calculate carbon emissions, and report the results. In summary, the mandatory regulations require facilities using refrigeration and air-conditioning (RAC) systems or heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems to collect, organize, calculate and report carbon emissions.

Unfortunately, all HVAC-R systems will vent refrigerant gases from time to time; all of which leads to ozone depletion and increased carbon emissions for the emitting organization. Trying to determine how much carbon is emitted is an intricate process. Conducting a carbon audit or a carbon footprint across an organization begins with collecting data related to each location, the assets being used, and identifying high global warming potential gases. From there, a determination on how much of each gas is released must be made. Then various reports that include tracking methods need to be completed and submitted.

Refrigerant management programs can best handle the tedious process of calculating carbon emissions. Across a distributed organization or one with more than a couple of locations and a few HVAC-R systems, a web-based or database driven refrigerant management solution is more effective and less prone to error as are paper log books. A refrigerant management program that includes a solution for refrigerant gas tracking and an automated way to calculate carbon emissions is important. Solutions like this make is easier to handle calculating carbon emissions for all AC/HVAC systems operated by a company.

There are several reasons that led to the EPA and international environmental agencies to require companies to include calculating carbon emissions in their reports. It is an important step to define your organizational boundaries, where you do business, and to identify the refrigerants you own or other sources of greenhouse gases (GHGs). Equally important is to establish a tracking mechanism for determining how much harmful gases are released at any given time. The information and data collected for the emerging refrigerant management programs will enhance and improve atmospheric conditions with specific requirements for reducing carbon (CO2) emissions.

By calculating carbon emissions, companies will be able to recognize the extent of their carbon footprint. For companies with multiple locations using refrigeration and air-conditioning (RAC) systems or heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, the task becomes even more critical.

But there is help to address this challenging issue. Emerging software provided by clean-tech development firms track carbon dioxide gas emissions across all sites so companies can do their part to ensure a healthy environment for years to come.

Daniel Stouffer, Product Manager at Verisae, has much more detail on the importance of carbon emission management, tracking, and reporting. Refrigerant Tracker makes it easy to monitor, manage, and report refrigerant gas usage across multiple locations. Learn more at Refrigerant Tracker