“The newly completed R290 production line will be an excellent pilot project for the promotion of environmentally-friendly technologies for both the domestic and international air conditioning industry ”,said Li Ganjie, vice minister of the Ministry of Environment Protection of China (MEP) at the ceremony held for the completion of the production line. “It will also speed up the speed of the phasing-out of R22,”he added.
Wen Wurui, director of the Foreign Economic Cooperation Office of the MEP, Zhu Jianghong, chairman of the board of Gree, and senior officers from Germany, attended the ceremony.
According to the Montreal Protocol, R22 will be prohibited to use in 2030.Therefore, finding an ideal R22 alternative has been an urgent task for the global air conditioning industry for many years. Although R410A is a popular alternatives at present, its high global warming potential (GWP) prevented it from being populated in many cases. R290 is a generally accepted environmentally-friendly refrigerant throughout the world. It has no ozone depletion potential (ODP=0) and an extremely low global warming potential (GWP=3). However, its highly flammability has restricted its large-scale application in the air conditioning industry.
In December 2008, the R290 refrigerant air conditioner development by Gree passed the inspection of an expert panel from China Household Electrical Appliance Association (CHEAA). In September 2010, VDE released its first certificate for R290 air conditioners to Gree, which means the R290 air conditioners produced by Gree can be sold in Germany and all the countries in the EU.
German government reached an agreement to cooperate with the MEP and CHEAA through GIZ (German Agency for International Cooperation) agency to provide €1.05 million funds for Gree to design and construct the R290 refrigerant air conditioner production line with production capacity of 100.000 units each year.
The production line can produce non-inverter and inverter split type air conditioners, window type air conditioners, movable air conditioners and dehumidifiers, which are now mainly exported to the EU market.
As soon of the largest air conditioner manufacturers throughout the world, Gree insists on mastering the key technologies of the production of the world-leading products. It boasts a large R&D team in its some 300 world-leading laboratories and it has also obtained big achievement on the development of new refrigerant alternatives.
