2 Conclusions - Environmental screening of Energy-using Products – Environmental Project No. 1308 2009 – Environmental Screening and Evaluation of Energy-using Products (EuP) Final Report

Environmental Screening and Evaluation of Energy-using Products (EuP) Final Report

2 Conclusions - Environmental screening of Energy-using Products

2.1 General conclusions
2.2 Environmental screening
- 2.2.1 Environmental issues in the Preparatory Studies
2.3 Regulatory issues
2.4 Overview of technology trends and important environmental issues

The summary highlights key points and conclusions on the basis of the environmental screening and assessment of technology and market trends, and the parties experience and knowledge of the case. The summary is structured along the following main elements: General conclusions, environmental conclusions, technology and market trends; and regulation.

2.1 General conclusions

2.1.1 From life-cycle thinking to energy efficiency

The Preparatory Studies of EUP carried out as background for setting up implementing measures, generally have the following characteristics:

a comprehensive and thorough work has been put into each EuP study
experts have been involved in each product group
the main environmental impacts of each product group are assessed
energy consumption in the use phase – ofcourse – possesses the most significant environmental impact
the EuP studies have been commented by stakeholders (or is in the process of being so)
a comprehensive background material has been prepared for each product group at the expense of hundreds or thousands of hours

However, the current draft EuP Implementing Measures almost exclusively focuses on energy efficiency. It is in the transition from Preparatory Studies to the first draft of the Implementing Measures that the general understanding of the life-cycle view must be maintained.

2.1.2 A vision for a comprehensive approach to “Energy using Products”

An urgent need is present to see the environmental impacts of Energy using Products in a more comprehensive and systemic view. Individual products can (and should) be regulated in order to promote the “best of breed” products with the least environmental impact. However, the product view should, in our opinion, also be guided by a system approach supported by life-cycle thinking and governed by an overall vision about generation, distribution and use of energy – the energy system.

Hence, in terms of Energy using Products we propose to pursue a paradigm of:

“Distributed production – central coordination – local control”.

From a systemic approach, energy production should be generated distributed from many sources with a central coordination, and focus should be shifted to developing and deploying energy preserving and environmentally sustainable distribution networks and intelligent, locally situated control mechanisms.

Distributed production based on all kinds of resources, i.e. electricity from renewable sources, heat and cooling from waste, etc. is from an environmental point of view the most effective that brings production and consumption close together. However, distributed production has to become centrally coordinated as in the electricity grid and in district heating; and this coordination challenge increase with the number of production units.

One exemption is solid fuel combustion e.g. stoves in private househould, where the overall conversion efficenincy will be much less than in a central unit that not only produce heat but also electricity; and the ability to control environmental factors such as emission of substances and particles to air and soil will be much more effective with only a few large units instead of all the small stoves.

To fully exploit the potential advantages of renewable energies, it is necessary to re-think the basic philosophy governing the energy distribution systems. The present distributed generation sources should not only be connected, but must be fully integrated into the distribution system. At the same time, the networks must make use of the customers' demand for flexibilities and offer appropriate economic instruments, such as real time pricing.

The goals of transforming the current electricity grids into a resilient and interactive service network will necessitate the use of key enabling technologies such as innovative ICT (Information and Communication Technology) solutions, storage technologies, power electronics and superconducting devices. For gas and heat networks, the objective is to deploy more intelligent and efficient processes and systems for transport and distribution, including the effective integration of renewable energy sources and the use of biogas in the existing networks.

In order to optimise energy use, an entirely new breed of intelligent and interoperable local control mechanisms is needed, which can adapt and optimise the energy consumption to the immediate need of the user thus helping to decouple growth in energy consumption from economic growth.

Energy savings in buildings will progressively be achieved through distributed energy management systems that are able to interact and communicate with sensors and actuators through common open protocols and to cope with higher complexity at various scales. Improved connectivity of different systems will thus increasingly be required.

Hence, Energy using Products will increasingly be able to incorporate intelligent optimisation of the distribution and demand of energy, which is the challenge to achieve energy positive buildings and neighbourhoods. Monitoring and control systems will be able to optimize, in near-real time, the local generation-consumption matching, considering all possible elements (solar, fuel cells, micro-turbines, CHP - combined heat and power, heating, cooling, lighting, ventilation, etc).

2.1.3 Functional unit - the single product versus the system approach

Since the EuP focus on existing products rather than on the function to be carried out (such as “air conditioners” instead of “cooling of buildings”), then benefits of life-cycle thinking becomes undermined, when the scope is limited to the products.

On the one hand, EuP aims to be a catalyst for technological innovation on energy efficiency of products. On the other hand, there is a risk that EuP will be conserving old technologies, if new integrated and efficient system solutions are not sufficiently taken into account.

As an example, passive houses or energy-plus houses can (and should) include alternative and more energy-efficient solutions to the issues, which are addressed in the product groups: Boilers and water heaters, air conditioners and ventilation. Lessons learned from passsive houses show that solutions can be designed so they will reduce the overall need for products from the groups: Solid-fuel combustion; refrigerators; tumble dryers; external power supply and domestic lighting.

Summing up, at least three different trends support a system approach:

Technology trend – an increasing product- and systemintegration, where the single products become more complex with several more functions e.g. mobile phones, and intregrated in overall systems e.g, wireless communication and the Internet
Environmental impacts will not only be attached to the single product but to the efficiency and effectiveness of the overall technology system
Improvement potentials – optimisation of the single product will increasingly take place as part of product-service systems that reflect the overall technology development and market demands; while manufacturers and public regulators do not necessarily have semiliar attention the system aspect as such.

The scope the EuP directive has recently been expanded from “energy-using” to “energy-related” products such as windows, insulation, etc. In the long run, the European Commision will set up minimum performance demands to single products that all are integrated in an overall system, such as a building or a communication system. In other words, when setting up demands it will be necessary to reflect the energy and environmental efficiency of the overall system, when – with Aristoletes words: “the whole is more than the sum of its parts”.

2.2 Environmental screening

2.2.1 Environmental issues in the Preparatory Studies

For most of the product groups, criteria for eco-labelling is available that highlight key environmental requirements for products. These requirements could have been, but are not included in the requirements listed in the EuP context.

For example, the screening performed revealed that the toners in fact constitute a more pressing environmental problem for printers than the energy consumption. This highlights the need for environmentally conscious design approaches and the need for focus on environmental issues in future technology and product development.

Of particular interest is a close examination of environmental issues of future energy efficient technologies, which will be promoted as a result of the EuP requirements, such as lighting based on new generations of diodes (LED).

2.3 Regulatory issues

2.3.1 The dynamics of technology trends and missing link to eco-labelling

Overall, the energy efficiency targets are set fairly ambitious, but the incentive to meet ambitious targets through intensified technology development is not so obvious.

It should be indicated what is the long term target, because industry often favours the long view. Moreover, a permanent procedure should be established for, at which intervals the targets will be reviewed (as is the case in eco-labelling).

Likewise, a procedure to ensure that the criteria for eco-labelling are more deeply entrenched in the setting up the Implementing Measures would be beneficial. EuP is aimed at banning products with the worst environmental performance, while eco-labelling is aimed at providing incentives for product development and competitive advantages for producers of cleaner products. If EuP also includes broader environmental concerns than energy efficiency, then it will require a more dynamic review of the eco-labelling criteria.

2.3.2 Interface between product- and system view

In the context of lot 1 (boilers), the prepatory study operates with a relatively broad system definition, since management of the heating system and the ability to connect to other systems such as solar collector and heat pumps, are vital to the energy efficiency of the overall heating system. This approach has not attracted unconditional support. Furthermore, it yields an interface to the building regulations. The interaction between these two forms of regulation should be investigated further.

Similarly, it should be considered how much effort is required to introduce regulation of products such as DVD players, which in a few years can be expected to be translated into a service delivered via the Internet (equivalent to the dematerialisation of the answering machine). A similar problem of regulation is felt in relation to products, which are likely to be integrated in other products (copier, printer, etc.) or where the product changes the entire nature (facsimile machines).

2.3.3 The link to the WEEE and RoHS directives

The RoHS Directive is working reasonably well in ensuring phasing out of hazardous chemicals and materials. Requests to ban further dangerous substances can most appropriate be resolved in this context (and expanded to other products groups than electronics)

On the other hand, the WEEE directive has until now mainly focused on waste management and recycling, while the Eco-design “intentions” are not realised at all. In other words, issues such as resource efficiency and the closing of the materials loop are not covered by existing regulation. The extensive knowledge of the product groups (from the Preparatory Studies) can be transformed into eco-design guidelines for the industry for: Choice of material (energy and environmentally sound choices, recyclable materials), optimization of materials (dematerialisation) and design for recycling, etc.

2.4 Overview of technology trends and important environmental issues

The following table provides an overview of the identified technology trends and the resulting important environmental issues for each product group. We have also provided our suggestions for actions that can be contemplated when addressing these issues.

Table 2.1 Overview of technology trends and important environmental issues

Product Group	Trends, to be taken into account in the Implementing Measures because of the resulting environmental impacts	Important environmental impacts which should be taken into account in the Implementing Measures	Suggestions for actions to address the most important environmental impacts
Lot 1 and 2 Boilers and combi-boilers (gas/oil/electric) and water heaters (gas/oil/electric)	Energy efficiency improvement potential for boilers and water heaters is considerable (close to 40%). Improving the energy efficiency of existing boiler systems will not contribute radically towards reduced global warming, as long as the boiler systems are based on the combustion of oil and natural gas. Improvements are also foreseen if the market is stimulated in the direction of co-producing boilers that produce both heating and electricity.	The extraction of non-renewable energy resources is significant. It is dominated by the extraction of oil and gas for the combustion during use of the boilers.	In order to promote alternatives to gas, oil and electricity based boilers and water heaters, investments in technical improvements of solar heating systems, geothermic energy, heat pumps, etc. should be facilitated. Promotion of co-producing boilers requires the existence of appropriate buy-back schemes for public utilities.
Lot 3 Personal Computers (desktops and portables) & computer monitors	Personal Computers and monitors will change due to emerging broadband and wireless connectivity, which will allow all devices (including computers) to be connected to central servers at all timers, anywhere.	Dematerialisation of PCs and monitors will have a significant and positive effect, since the manufacturing process will be less resource demanding. Although the amount of WEEE is going to decrease due to the smaller units, the number of communication units, gateways and modems put on the market will increase WEEE. The large data centres are large consumers of electricity and power for cooling. The centralisation of computational power allows for improved optimisation of energy use compared to a decentralised structure with billions of individual users.	Increased energy consumption from the use of DSL modems and broadband equipment must be weighted against the lower energy consumption of smaller computers and the phasing out of energy consuming desktop PCs. Physically small devices are more likely to find their way into the household waste stream than are large desktop PCs and there will be a need to improve multilevel sorting and improved attitudes towards small WEEE among households. Measures needed to improve the environmental impact are easier to implement in large centralised structures than in the consumer end.
Lot 4 Imaging equipment: Copiers, faxes, printers, scanners, multifunctional devices	Recent efforts have focused on reducing energy consumption and optimising recycling of print cartridges. Due to novel communication technologies facsimile machines are not expected to have material environmental impact on the longer term. Sale of scanners has seen strong growth in the past years but with the introduction of printer-based multifunction machines, the sales of flatbed scanners will decline fast.	The environmental impact comes from the consumption of paper, the consumption of toner and the electricity consumption during use. The consumption of toner is not the same for b/w printing and for colour printing.	The energy efficiency of office imaging equipment is generally at a good level. Under real life conditions, the energy efficiency potential of imaging equipment is not necessarily explored due to a potentially suboptimal use by the consumer. Focus should now be put on designing toners with less overall environmental impacts
Lot 5 Consumer electronics: Televisions	The main contributions to the overall environmental impacts come from the electricity consumption during use. New trend on the market having an important impact are larger screen sizes and plasma TVs, which use considerable more energy. Prospects for improving efficiency in LCD TVs are better than for improving efficiency in the old CRT TVs, in particular by introducing solid state lighting in the backlighting systems.	From the production of the hardware, it is especially the energy used for the production and eco-toxicity impacts from heavy metals arising during the extraction of materials that causes the environmental impact. The fast turnover and technological development, however, could change the energy consumption. Old CRT screens are effectively being phased out.	The energy efficiency of television equipment is generally at a good level.
Lot 6 Standby and off-mode losses of EuPs	The rapidly growing trend in home networks will lead to requirements for new functions in future products in terms of additional network interfaces and always-on and keep-alive requirements.	The relevance of this group results from the increasing numbers of devices and the long duration of power consumption, often invisible to the user.	It is recommended that at future needs for functionality and ease of use in networked civic applications (such as healthcare, ageing, ambient assisted living, entertainment, life-long education, energy efficient buildings, etc) should be taken into consideration when implementing EuP requirements on a horizontal group as this.
Lot 7 Battery chargers and external power supplies	The trend towards mobile and handheld computers will lead to increased use of batteries and increased need for external chargers.	The environmental aspects of battery chargers and external power supplies are similar to those of personal computers (same issues, same problems, just in a smaller scale).	It is important to take future needs for mobility and ease of use in networked civic applications (such as mobile healthcare, work-force mobility, etc) into consideration when implementing EuP requirements.
Lots 8, 9, 19 and ? Lighting (Office, public street, domestic)	Tri phosphor lamps contain 3 mg of mercury per lamp. These lamps are more expensive, but they have significantly longer life-time than the halo phosphate lamps. LED technology is a very promising technology for lowering the electricity consumption in both residential and public lighting and because it contains relatively non-toxic components and no mercury.	There is a great potential for lowering the energy consumption of mercury in florescent tubes by replacing the halo phosphate with tri phosphor lamps.	Increasing life-time even further for tri phosphor lamps is interesting, but needs some time for technical development.
Lot 10 Residential room conditioning appliances (aircon and ventilation)	In some EU countries the penetration of small air-conditioners reached significant penetration levels similar to that of the US.	The electricity consumption during use is by far the most significant contributor to the environmental impacts from ventilation systems but some of the refrigerants contribute to the global warming (HFC and PFC). Some refrigerants might also have other environmental impacts, like toxicity.	Solutions based on large, central units (e.g. for apartment blocks) incorporating environmental clean and renewable energy sources should be preferred over local conditioners in each dwelling. Demands for higher heat recovery rates would also be more effectively implemented in large units.
Lot 11 Electric motors 1-150 kW, water pumps, circulators in buildings, ventilation fans (non-residential)	Intelligent pumps fitted with electronics allow for considerable reductions in energy consumption of up to 50%. The technology behind these advances emanates from the development of permanent magnet motors, as these dramatically increase motor efficiency.	The trends in intelligent pumps illustrate the need and the possibilities that exist for energy savings, when the control of energy consumption is done locally in the context in which the consumption takes place.	In view of the paradigm of “Central production – local control”, the need for intelligent and controllable motors (in pumps and other places) is evident and should be promoted.
Lot 12 and 13 Refrigerators and freezers, including chillers, display cabinets and vending machines	New refrigerators have much higher energy efficiency than do older so extended life-time for this product group is not recommended. Due to the relative slow replacement in this product group, it could take a considerable number of years before new A+ or A++ appliances replaces the old.	Waste handling of old refrigerators is very important, and is mostly covered by the WEEE directive as far as material recovery and limitation of emission is concerned,	More reliable return systems have to be set up in order to prevent the old appliances from being shipped illegally to emerging markets like India, Pakistan or China. The European Ecolabel for refrigerators ended 31 May 2008 and new regulations must be put into force.
Lot 14 Domestic dishwashers and washing machines	Locally controlled, intelligent washing machines will not only be able to save energy (washing at lower temperatures and at off-peak hours) but will also use much lower detergents and other ingredients, by matching the consumption to the content of the wash. Water-less washing machines are in the experimental stage.	The energy consumption during use is absolutely the most important environmental impact for this product group. Washing at lower degrees can significantly reduce the energy consumption by using enzyme based washing powder. The environmental impact of the materials used for rinsing the clothes (e.g. nano-scale silver and ozone) are unknown..	Great focus should be put on the ability of washing at low degrees or even in cold water. New materials used for rinsing of clothes should be followed closely. The Nordic Ecolabelling criteria for dishwashers and washing machines will expire in October 2008 and initiatives should be underway to update them
Lot 15 Solid fuel small combustion installation (in particular for heating)	The manufacture of stoves and furnaces has only minor environmental impacts relative to the impacts from the combustion taking place in them.	Air emission of small particles is the most important environmental aspect of this product group in addition to air emissions of NOx, SO₂ and CO.	As the EuP preparatory study focus on improving the combustion efficiency and reducing emissions of NO_X, SO₂, CO and small particles, which will cover the most important issues regarding the environmental impacts from solid fuel small combustion installations.
Lot 16 Laundry driers	Heat pump tumble driers result in significant energy savings as they consume only about half the electricity of conventional condenser driers.	Dryers are the appliance where little progresses in energy efficiency have been achieved with the mandatory energy label.	Gas heated (which are not labelled) and heat pump dryers (most of them are in A class), which use much less primary energy should be promoted.
Lot 17 Vacuum cleaners	Vacuum cleaners are basically to be regarded as mobile heating units. Airflow efficiencies vacuum cleaner is rarely above 50% and often around 35%.	The dust bags are a major sources of particle pollution, which can cause allergic reactions among private and professional users, as well as a permanent residential repository of various hazardous substances.	In order to improve both energy efficiency and emission of small particles, vacuum cleaners, and in particularly their filters, should be regularly cleaned and maintained. Users should not be able to operate machines when filters must be changed.
Lot ? Simple Converter Boxes for digital television	The main area of concern in the conversion to digital broadcasts is the legacy of installed analogue televisions and how they will operate in a digital broadcast future. The short and simple answer is the digital converter. The long term trend is to move from simple set-top boxes to more complex types in the networked homes.	Increased energy consumption from the increased use of simple converter boxes is not the only environmental impact foreseen. Adding millions of electronic devices to the market every year poses a major challenge to the electronic waste, since these devices are all physically small and will easily find their way into the household waste stream. This will reduce the problem in this particular product group (but transfer it to another product group).	Physically small devices are more likely to find their way into the household waste stream than are large desktop PCs and there will be a need to improve multilevel sorting and improved attitudes towards small WEEE among households.
Lot 18 Complex set top boxes	Digital TV and sophisticated civic services such as healthcare, ambient assisted living, smart and intelligent homes, energy efficient buildings, etc., will result in the need for thoroughly networked and connected homes and thus more complex set-top boxes to control all the devices and appliances. These trends are presently accelerated by the convergence between Information Communication Technology equipment and consumer electronics.	The networked home is a prerequisite for realising the intelligent distribution and control of energy consumption and its environmental impact must be seen and evaluated in a systemic view and expressed in the paradigm “Central production – local control”. The long term environmental impact is difficult to predict, since it is highly depending on the appearance of supporting technologies such as battery technology, wireless communication, sensor networks, etc. Adding millions of electronic devices to the market every year poses a major challenge to the electronic waste, since these devices are all physically small and will easily find their way into the household waste stream.	However, modular design, possibilities for updates and backward compatibility can alleviate some of the waste problems and should be promoted. Physically small devices are more likely to find their way into the household waste stream than are large desktop PCs and there will be a need to improve multilevel sorting and improved attitudes towards small WEEE among households.