Appliance Design - February 2008 - (Page 56) ASSOCIATION REPORT: AHRI President Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute Stephen R. Yurek A The Industry Comes Together ditioners, and less-efficient commercial refrigeration equipment. The installed base will naturally replace itself in about 20 years or so, but the high price and increased demand for energy, coupled with increasing environmental pressures, make quicker replacement a more urgent matter. And states, some of which have significant energy supply challenges, are starting to take notice. California, for example, is considering a pilot program to require replacement of a 5+-year-old, <13 SEER system when a house is sold, with the cost rolled into the buyer’s mortgage. It is abundantly clear that if saving serious energy is the goal, a piecemeal approach is not sufficient. With evidence suggesting that more homeowners are opting to repair their old, inefficient systems rather than purchase new, high-efficiency units, the need becomes even more urgent. We expect that legislation and regulatory initiatives addressing climate change both here and overseas will continue in 2008, as AHRI and our industry allies work to ensure protection of the refrigerants vital to the efficient operation of many of our products. Our initiatives to minimize emissions of those refrigerants into the environment will continue, as will our efforts to persuade the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate HFCs under the Clean Air Act and Congress to approve a plan to use levies on production of virgin refrigerants to fund reclamation, recycling, and/or destruction of used refrigerants. Overseas, AHRI will continue to work through the Brussels-based European Partnership for Energy and the Environment (EPEE) to ensure that we have a voice in the development of laws and regulations that impact our industry. AHRI and EPEE will continue to advocate for a successful program of industry self-regulation of HFCs so as to ensure their continued use. In 2007, we began in earnest working with counterpart associations in Europe, China, Mexico, and Brazil to establish a framework for cooperation on harmonization of standards and certification programs. That effort will continue – and expand – in 2008. Creating and maintaining a level playing field in standards and certification is essential to ensuring free and fair access to all markets for our manufacturers. In addition, certification is an important aspect of energy efficiency, because certified equipment has been tested and found to meet the standard to which it was rated. < www.applianceDESIGN.com s 2008 gets in full swing, the landscape for our industry is dotted with obstacles – challenges, if you will – that will take hard work and ingenuity to navigate. That these challenges exist for the heating side of the industry as well as for the air conditioning and refrigeration side was a primary impetus for merging the Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Institute (ARI) and the Gas Appliance Manufacturers Association (GAMA). The combined membership, budget, staff, and talent of the two associations will provide our industry with unparalleled and unprecedented representation at the federal, state, and international levels as we work toward a common purpose and a new era of industry collaboration on the three pillars of standards, certification, and advocacy. The merger of ARI and GAMA into the AirConditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI) creates an association of 350-plus-member companies with combined annual sales topping $27 billion. Instantly among the top 15 percent of trade associations in the U.S., AHRI will wield the clout commensurate with the size, workforce, and sales of its member companies. The challenges we will face – together – remain the same as they were before the merger: Energy efficiency, environmental stewardship, global harmonization of standards, and certification programs, minimizing refrigerant releases, and the 2010 changeover from HCFCs to HFCs. The difference is that industry will now speak with one, more powerful voice on these and other issues, here and abroad, with opportunities for influence and persuasion that simply did not exist before. Energy supplies remain tight and energy prices high. Therefore, energy efficiency will continue to be an important issue in 2008. The recently passed energy bill, which created its own challenges for our industry in the form of regional efficiency standards, was primarily about energy efficiency. The mission for our industry is to be creative in our efforts to be part of the energy-efficiency solution. Our members can, and do, manufacture highly efficient equipment that is available to anyone who wishes to buy it. The issue is not manufacturing know-how or equipment availability, however. The challenge is to find ways to accelerate replacement of the installed base of furnaces, boilers, water heaters, central air con- 56 applianceDESIGN February 2008 http://www.appliancedesign.com
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