Honeywell (NYSE: HON) announced today that Hispacold, a Spain-based producer of bus air-conditioning systems, reported a 99.77 percent reduction in direct emissions when using Honeywell's new low-global-warming-potential refrigerant HFO-1234yf.
For a typical bus fleet size of a medium-sized city, using HFO-1234yf as the refrigerant would help eliminate direct emissions of 14,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents per year. This is equivalent to removing around 8000 cars from city traffic every year. In addition, bus manufacturers could use 20 percent less refrigerant should they choose HFO-1234yf. The Hispacold work also suggests that HFO-1234yf is a near drop-in replacement refrigerant for the current refrigerant, HFC-134a, in the tested bus air-conditioning systems.
The tests were co-funded by the Centre for the Industrial Technological Development of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation.
"These tests prove HFO-1234yf is a technically viable environmental alternative to HFC-134a in air-conditioning systems for buses," said Paul Sanders, Managing Director for Honeywell Fluorine Products in Europe, Middle East, Africa and India. "HFO-1234yf is being readily adopted for use in car air conditioning systems, and now this testing shows that its energy-efficiency, proven safety, environmental compliance and cost performance can help reduce the environmental footprint of buses, too."
"Along with HFO-1234yf, we have evaluated CO2-based systems, but performance of those systems was poor in higher ambient temperatures. We have focused our efforts on HFO-1234yf, which is already a proven and supported technology by automotive manufacturers," said Juan Bernal Cantón, Research and Development Manager for Hispacold.
The bench test studied the use of HFO-1234yf in Hispacold's 12S roof top air conditioning unit, and it compared the performance of Honeywell's new HFO-1234yf refrigerant versus HFC-134a, in a drop-in and optimized configurations.
HFO-1234yf with a global warming potential of just 4, will lower the direct emission of buses air conditioning systems by more than 99.7 per cent. Moreover, HFO-1234yf has an atmospheric lifetime of only 11 days, compared to 13 years for HFC-134a and more than 500 years for carbon dioxide (CO2).
Hispacold is a producer of air-conditioning units for buses and coaches based in Spain. It exports its products into more than 100 countries around the world. Hispacold has been working to develop a climate system solution for buses and coaches far ahead of potential European Union regulations affecting the environmental footprint of bus and coach air conditioning systems.
This release contains certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, that address activities, events or developments that we or our management intends, expects, projects, believes or anticipates will or may occur in the future are forward-looking statements. Such statements are based upon certain assumptions and assessments made by our management in light of their experience and their perception of historical trends, current economic and industry conditions, expected future developments and other factors they believe to be appropriate. The forward-looking statements included in this release are also subject to a number of material risks and uncertainties, including but not limited to economic, competitive, governmental, and technological factors affecting our operations, markets, products, services and prices. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, and actual results, developments and business decisions may differ from those envisaged by such forward-looking statements.
For a typical bus fleet size of a medium-sized city, using HFO-1234yf as the refrigerant would help eliminate direct emissions of 14,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents per year. This is equivalent to removing around 8000 cars from city traffic every year. In addition, bus manufacturers could use 20 percent less refrigerant should they choose HFO-1234yf. The Hispacold work also suggests that HFO-1234yf is a near drop-in replacement refrigerant for the current refrigerant, HFC-134a, in the tested bus air-conditioning systems.
The tests were co-funded by the Centre for the Industrial Technological Development of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation.
"These tests prove HFO-1234yf is a technically viable environmental alternative to HFC-134a in air-conditioning systems for buses," said Paul Sanders, Managing Director for Honeywell Fluorine Products in Europe, Middle East, Africa and India. "HFO-1234yf is being readily adopted for use in car air conditioning systems, and now this testing shows that its energy-efficiency, proven safety, environmental compliance and cost performance can help reduce the environmental footprint of buses, too."
"Along with HFO-1234yf, we have evaluated CO2-based systems, but performance of those systems was poor in higher ambient temperatures. We have focused our efforts on HFO-1234yf, which is already a proven and supported technology by automotive manufacturers," said Juan Bernal Cantón, Research and Development Manager for Hispacold.
The bench test studied the use of HFO-1234yf in Hispacold's 12S roof top air conditioning unit, and it compared the performance of Honeywell's new HFO-1234yf refrigerant versus HFC-134a, in a drop-in and optimized configurations.
HFO-1234yf with a global warming potential of just 4, will lower the direct emission of buses air conditioning systems by more than 99.7 per cent. Moreover, HFO-1234yf has an atmospheric lifetime of only 11 days, compared to 13 years for HFC-134a and more than 500 years for carbon dioxide (CO2).
Hispacold is a producer of air-conditioning units for buses and coaches based in Spain. It exports its products into more than 100 countries around the world. Hispacold has been working to develop a climate system solution for buses and coaches far ahead of potential European Union regulations affecting the environmental footprint of bus and coach air conditioning systems.
This release contains certain statements that may be deemed "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934. All statements, other than statements of historical fact, that address activities, events or developments that we or our management intends, expects, projects, believes or anticipates will or may occur in the future are forward-looking statements. Such statements are based upon certain assumptions and assessments made by our management in light of their experience and their perception of historical trends, current economic and industry conditions, expected future developments and other factors they believe to be appropriate. The forward-looking statements included in this release are also subject to a number of material risks and uncertainties, including but not limited to economic, competitive, governmental, and technological factors affecting our operations, markets, products, services and prices. Such forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, and actual results, developments and business decisions may differ from those envisaged by such forward-looking statements.
