Regulatory Impact Statement - Proposal to increase MEPS for room airconditioners and harmonise MEPS for single and three-phase units (revised)

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Call for Public Submissions

Written submissions from stakeholders close on Friday, 29 July 2005. The AGO proposes to provide the MCE with a report summarising submissions together with a revision of these documents in late August 2005.

Summary

This revised report was prepared by Syneca Consulting in June 2005 for NAEEEC and the AGO as Report 2005/16. This RIS replaces an earlier version which was released in February 2005 (NAEEEC report 2005/04). Changes were made in response to initial industry feedback on the original version. The main changes are an adjustment of new MEPS timing and eventual harmonisation of requirements for three phase and single phase units of the same capacity.

The proposals in this RIS are supposed by a technical review of MEPS options and international MEPS levels (Report 2005/03) undertaken by EnergyConsult for NAEEEC.

This Regulatory Impact Statement outlines a three part proposal to increase the minimum energy performance standards (MEPS) for single-phase non-ducted airconditioners, hereafter referred to as room airconditioners. The proposal relates to refrigerative airconditioners including those that can be configured for reverse cycle operation. A revised Standard, incorporating the proposed changes, would be given legal effect under State and Territory legislation.

The first part of the proposal relates to single phase non-ducted residential room airconditioners of less than 7.5 kW cooling capacity and will bring forward the published 2007 MEPS by 12 months - from October 2007 to October 2006. Note that some air conditioner types (such as commercial non-ducted and ducted models) still have a MEPS date of 2007.

The second part of the proposal relates to non-ducted room airconditioners of less than 10 kW cooling capacity and will result in an increase in MEPS levels in October 2008. The proposal follows a lead set by Korea. New Korean MEPS were implemented in October 2004 and it is proposed that Australia follow Korea with a lag of 4 years.

The third part of the proposal involves the elimination of differences in MEPS levels between single phase and three phase by 2008 for the same cooling capacity. Essentially from 2008 all units less than 10kW cooling capacity will be subjected to single phase MEPS levels from 2008 and all units greater than 10kW cooling capacity will be subjected to three phase MEPS levels from 2008.

It is important that the report be consulted for the precise technical details of the proposal. The proposal has also been incorporated in a public comment draft of a revised AS/NZS 3823 Part 2 (DR05316) (see Standards Updates for more detail).

The objective

The objective of the proposed regulation is to further reduce Australia's greenhouse gas emissions from the use of airconditioners, subject to the following constraints:

The measures need to be cost-effective for the broad community of users of airconditioners
The measures need to be efficiently designed, minimising adverse impacts on manufacturers and suppliers, and minimising adverse impacts on product quality and function
The measures need to be clear and comprehensive, minimising potential for confusion or ambiguity for users and suppliers

Cost-effectiveness is interpreted in terms of the interests of the broad community of users.

Recommendation

Despite the uncertainties, the proposal is consistent with the National Greenhouse Strategy. It meets the requirements of the Prime Minister's statement of November 20, 1997, delivering . . . realistic, cost-effective reductions in key sectors where emissions are high or growing strongly, while also fairly spreading the burden of action across the economy. He also stated that the Government is . . . prepared to ask industry to do more than they would otherwise be prepared to do, that is, go beyond a "no regrets", minimum cost approach where this is sensible in order to achieve effective and meaningful outcomes.

It is recommended that States and Territories implement the proposed mandatory minimum energy performance standards. This will require States and Territories to amend existing regulations governing appliance energy labelling and MEPS.

For reference, a link to the original version of the RIS is available (report 2005/04)

This page last modified 23 February 2006