News & events

European ProCool Award for energy saving environmentally friendly commercial refrigerators and freezers at the international Hannover Fair

Hannover, 24.04.2006: Innovative display refrigerators and freezers use less energy and can be operated without ecologically harmful refrigerants and insulation materials. This has been demonstrated by three leading European companies, which have received the ProCool Award at the Hannover Fair for their newly developed appliances. Eight manufacturers from six European countries have participated in this competition focussed on energy efficiency and environmental compatibility but also considered the criteria costs and functionality.

Due to the reduced energy consumption the new appliances allow cost savings between 20 and 40% during operation. All awarded products are free of HFCs and contain only natural refrigerants. Currently used refrigerants show a high global warming potential which is up to 3.800 times higher than for CO2. In Europe the electricity consumption of commercial refrigerators and freezers amounts to roughly three percent of the total electricity consumption corresponding to 50 million tons of CO2.

The manufacturer LIEBHERR received three of the five ProCool Awards and thereby underlined its commitment to environmentally friendly products. Two horizontal deep freezers and one display refrigerator were awarded. All appliances show a low energy consumption and good functionality. The glass door refrigerator shows exceptionally good energy efficiency and very low noise emissions. Here the criterion of noise emissions often considered by users has especially been taken into account in the product development.

Another ProCool Award was given to the manufacturer AHT Cooling Systems for the development of a large deep freezer typically used in super markets. With this contribution it was demonstrated, that environmentally friendly but inflammable natural refrigerants can also be used in large freezers without any safety risk. For natural inflammable refrigerants like Propane and Isobutane, recommendations for maximum filling quantities per appliance do apply to avoid any risks. The filling quantity of the newly developed appliance could be kept well below the relevant level, which demonstrates the safety of the HFC-free technology.

A special award was given to the company FRIGOGLASS for an open upright cooler. This appliance does not completely fulfil the demanding energy efficiency criteria of ProCool but is based on the new technologically promising refrigerant CO2. It is expected, that the CO2-technology will allow a better energy efficiency than traditional technologies in the near future. For commercial refrigerators and freezers this technology is currently at a relatively early stage of development. First market introductions of serial products are planned for the year 2006. Thus this contribution to the competition has to be considered particularly innovative.

The Austrian-German Consortium of ProCool consists of the Austrian Energy Agency (project lead), the German Energy Agency, the Wuppertal Institute and the Austrian Consumer Association. The central motivation of the consortium in this competition was to stimulate the market for more efficient and environmentally friendly commercial refrigerators and freezers.

Brochure ProCool Award

ProCool Award Winners

ProCool- events

• Feb06-Jul06 Information and advertising measures relating to the results of the project. Presentation of the products and companies participating in the project.
• Apr06 Award ceremony at a trade fair or industry-specific event.
• Jan05-Nov05 Implementation and documentation of the contest.
• Oct04-Jan05 Call for contest entries.
• May04-Oct04 Getting manufacturers and commercial enterprises involved in the project. Planning the competition. Determining the contest criteria and testing methods.

News

• International companies of food and beverage industry and trade support the ProCool-competition. Coca Cola, REWE and Globus have signed an agreement and thereby declare to support efficient products resulting from the ProCool-competition.
• The final version of the EU-Framework-Directive has recently been published. In this document the basic framework for eco-efficient design of energy using appliances is discribed which should become mandatory in the future. The framework directive does not yet include specific criteria for product categories but a general discription of goals which will be developed to product specific directives in the future. Product specific directives for commercial refrigeratores and freezers should be prepared during the next two years.

Newsletter

Project implementation

Austrian Energy Agency

The Austrian Energy Agency is a non-profit research institution. Its board of directors comprises the federal minister charged with environmental affairs, the federal minister charged with energy affairs and a state governor.

Austrian Consumers’ Association (VKI)

The Austrian Consumers' Association in Vienna is comparable to Stiftung Warentest, Germany’s leading consumers’ organisation. Its members include the Republic of Austria and the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber.

German Energy Agency (dena)

The Deutsche Energie-Agentur GmbH is a nationwide competence centre for energy efficiency. It is an agency of the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Development Bank (KfW).

Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy

The Wuppertal Institute develops strategies and concepts in fields such energy and climate policy, transport and material flows. The Institute is a research institution of the German Land of North Rhine-Westphalia and is organised as a limited liability company (GmbH) under German law.