The big Chillventa show in Nuremberg, Germany, earlier this month is a meeting place for the European cooling industry. Alongside the wealth of innovation that is on display, there is always good debate.

Shows such as these are a rare chance to get the senior management from suppliers in one building — albeit a huge building in the case of the NurnbergMesse. They always prove to be a good place to discern trends in the European supply chain.

What was clearly on everyone's minds this time around was the absolute imperative for the industry to move to lower-GWP refrigerants. The context of this is the European Union's F-gas regulations, which start coming into play in January, and more specifically the proposed phasedown of HFCs, which will see a stepped reduction in the quota of the refrigerants available to the industry.

Of course, given the proposals on the table from the U.S. regarding its own HFC phasedown, the response of the European industry is going to be a useful bellwether. You could even say the U.S. will benefit from being able to watch how the Europeans handle the issues around phasedown — and head some of the inevitable problems off at the pass.

The talk at Chillventa was driven by the need to make both short-term and long-term changes to practice. It is by now clear that the likes of R404A have no place in a low-GWP cooling industry, so the message being drummed home time and again was: put some conversion plans in place.

Refrigerant manufacturers reported that they are advanced on the use of HFO-based blends, with some launched at the show and some indicated are soon to be made commercially available.

Those who have to work with the refrigerants and with their components — such as the key compressor manufacturers — were upbeat that HFOs such as R1234yf and R1234ze and their blends could be excellent ways to allow end users to lower their GWPs. Whether this is seen as a transitional arrangement (as end-users prepare for systems based on natural refrigerants) or an end in itself is still up for debate.

In Europe, the prevailing view among the supermarkets is that they will move to natural refrigerants for new build, but that leaves the need to retrofit existing estates. And as for the rest of the cooling industry, the future is not yet so clearly defined. Though, it seems clear now that the medium-term future will be based on a choice between HFOs and natural refrigerants.

Refrigerant producers stressed that while natural refrigerants would be part of the future solution, they could not be relied upon to meet all the industry's needs, particularly given the large HFC reduction couldn't be achieved with new equipment alone.

"The reality is that a large proportion of the installed base will need to be retrofitted to lower-GWP refrigerants to meet the 2017 and 2018 required reductions and those beyond," said John McMenamin, DuPont's European business and market manager. "This means the market will have a very real, large and critical need for lower GWP solutions that offer fast, easy and cost-effective retrofits."

He stressed that as soon as 2017, the industry would feel the impact.

"This is a critical date as it is the year where over 17 million tons of CO2 equivalent that is currently contained in imported precharged equipment must fit under the existing cap," McMenamin said. "In 2017, all precharged equipment coming into the EU must use refrigerant purchased from existing quota holders, so this is in effect an extra and earlier quota reduction."

But the good news is that suppliers believe that forthcoming HFO blends will not require significant changes in practice — quite the opposite in fact.

Bitzer chief technology officer Rainer Grosse-Kracht said that the company's compressor trials were encouraging for HFOs. Advanced field testing with supermarkets proved that HFOs can be used to good effect in the key areas of efficiency and materials compatibility.

"We started testing with HFOs five years ago, and there have been no issues from our side," Grosse-Kracht said. "It is easy to apply in practice, especially in warmer climates, and you could install it today in medium temperatures or in chiller applications — it really is a drop-in refrigerant for R134a."

Grosse-Kracht said the key that has been established is that judicious use of HFOs and blends will provide security for end-users looking to reduce GWP.

"It means you could invest in a system now running on R134a, and you will be secure for the future in Europe in terms of the F-gas regulations," he said. "The technicians know what to do, and HFO blends will be no different."

It also means that companies do not need to rush headlong into naturals if their engineering support is not ready for it, he added: "It is a chance to educate the technicians in natural refrigerants. It is a safe transition."

Asked whether he saw HFOs only as a transition towards natural refrigerants, Grosse-Kracht said: “What is a transition? We are on a long journey. Even natural refrigerants may not last for ever as a solution. HFOs definitely have a big market potential, and no one size fits all. The important thing is to ensure that the technicians are properly trained, because we all know that installation problems can kill a refrigerant if you are not careful."