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TRAINING GAP Indy described training as the “main issue in the greater Pacific region”. Back in 2008 Danfoss collaborated on a training facility with TAFE NSW, which offers vocational education courses. It was fitted with an NH3/CO2 system and a transcritical CO2 system for refrigeration students to get hands on work experience. Sadly, the facility is now left “underutilised” according to Indy due to a lack of government support for CO2 technology and very little incentive for refrigerant students to work with natural fluids and transition away from HFCs, which still dominate the industry. “The carbon tax made a lot of noise before it was scrapped. While it was in place the numbers at the TAFE College in Sydney were great and people then forgot that and just went back to traditional R404A or R134a.” “While there are a handful of people that are working on these [natural refrigerant] systems, there is still a lack of official training, at government and association level. That’s where Danfoss is trying to make the greatest impact: we’re trying to team up with local associations and get the government involved by saying, ‘hey, we’ve got training material, we’ve got examples of where we can help train your guys – let’s try and come up with something’. If we want to see this accelerate in great numbers we need to educate the market.”
towards CO2 because of it. In Australia the government are talking about it but until they do it there will be no real attraction.” The Australian government put out option papers in August 2015 seeking comment on a Direct Action approach, including a $2.5 billion Emissions Reduction Fund and a commitment to phase down hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) by 85% by 2036. Unlike Europe, Australia is a relatively closed economy. Boasting a landmass almost the size of the US yet inhabited by a relatively small population (around 23 million), big companies like Coles and Woolworths (in food retail) dominate their respective industries. In the absence of government support, Indy believes the onus is on the major end users to drive sustainable change in the industry. “Although the government will play an important factor in this, it’s going to be the end users who are going to be the greater players. In Australia, what controls that market is the big supermarket players, the biggest users of refrigeration. They are really driving where the industry goes. If they are interested in CO2, that’s where the market will go. It will also force the smaller players to go in the same direction.” “So, yes the [options] paper is needed from a governmental point of view. Is it really where it should be? That’s questionable, but I would still say without that commitment from end users we’ve got no direction. If they’re paying a tax to the government then they really have a say in where the market goes.” JR &KS
Ammonia system training
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Accelerate Australia & NZ Autumn 2016
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