Ecodesign Regulations Research Articles

Life cycle environmental evaluation of kettles: Recommendations for the development of eco-design regulations in the European Union

Between 117 and 200 million kettles are used in the European Union (EU) every year. However, the full environmental impacts of kettles remain largely unknown. This paper presents a comprehensive life cycle assessment of conventional plastic and metallic kettles in comparison with eco-kettles. The results show that the use stage contributes 80% to the impacts. For this reason, the eco-kettle has over 30% lower environmental impacts due to a greater water efficiency and related lower energy consumption. These results have been extrapolated to the EU level to consider the implications for proposed eco-design regulations. For these purposes, the effects on the impacts of durability of kettles and improvements in their energy and water efficiency have been assessed as they have been identified as two key parameters in the proposed regulations. The results suggest that increasing the current average durability from 4.4 to seven years would reduce the impacts by less than 5%. Thus, improving durability is not a key issue for improving the environmental performance of kettles and does not justify the need for an eco-design regulation based exclusively on it. However, improvements in water and energy efficiency through eco-design can bring relevant environmental savings. Boiling the exact amount of water needed would reduce the impacts by around a third and using water temperature control by further 2%–5%. The study has also considered the effects of reducing significantly the number of kettles in use after the UK (large user of kettles) leaves the EU and reducing the excess water typically boiled by the consumer. Even under these circumstances, the environmental savings justify the development of a specific EU eco-design regulation for kettles. However, consumer engagement will be key to the implementation and achievement of the expected environmental benefits.

Environmental assessment of microwaves and the effect of European energy efficiency and waste management legislation

More than 130 million microwaves are affected by European Union (EU) legislation which is aimed at reducing the consumption of electricity in the standby mode (‘Standby Regulation’) and at more sustainable management of end-of-life electrical and electronic waste (‘WEEE Directive’). While legislation focuses on these two life cycle stages, there is little information on the environmental impacts of the entire life cycle of microwaves. To address this gap, this paper presents a comprehensive life cycle assessment of microwaves and assesses the environmental implications of the Standby Regulation and the WEEE Directive at the EU level. The impacts are first considered at the level of individual appliances and then at the EU level, with the aim of evaluating the potential environmental implications of the full implementation of the above two EU regulations by 2020. The effects of the electricity decarbonisation and the expected increase in the number of microwaves in use have also been considered. The results suggest that implementation of the EU regulation by 2020 will reduce the environmental impacts considered by 4%–9% compared to the current situation. The majority of these reductions is due to the Standby Regulation, with the contribution of the WEEE Directive being small (~0.3%). However, the expected decarbonisation of electricity will result in much higher reductions (6%–24%) for most impact categories. The results also show that the materials used to manufacture the microwaves, the manufacturing process and end-of-life disposal are environmental hot-spots for several impacts, including depletion of abiotic elements. Therefore, efforts to reduce the environmental impacts of a future electricity mix should be combined with the development of specific eco-design regulations for microwaves that stipulate optimisation of resource consumption. Possible future trends, such as shorter lifetimes and limited availability of some resources, make the development of such product regulations more critical.

Assessing the review process of EU Ecodesign regulations

The EU Ecodesign and Energy Labelling Directives set regulations on the energy efficiency, environmental, and information requirements of energy related products entering the EU market. Each individual product regulation stipulates that the EU Commission must undertake a review after a certain number of years. This review stage is crucial to improve the effectiveness and ambition of regulations, and also presents an opportunity to include new resource efficiency aspects. The strength of a review depends on the review process, which has followed various approaches in each reviewed product group so far. This article aims to summarise and discuss these varying review processes and identify their differences and shortcomings. The analysis is based on comparing the review processes to the standard Methodology for Ecodesign of Energy related Products (MEErP) used in preparatory studies to develop new Ecodesign regulations. Analysis questions were discussed with a small number of experts to gain deeper insights on opportunities and difficulties; suggestions are made for improving future review processes.

Ecodesign and Energy Labelling: The Role of Virtual Prototyping

With increased acknowledgment of global climate change and warming, governments, consumers, and firms are responding collectively to create today's low-carbon economy. The eco-design of products is a crucial factor in the Community strategy on Integrated Product Policy. As a preventive approach, designed to optimize the environmental performance of products, while maintaining their functional qualities, it provides genuine new opportunities for manufacturers, consumers and society as a whole. This article presents an approach to support the designers during the energy labeling phases of products. The study starts with an analysis of the Eco-design regulations and proposes the virtualization of such tests. A case study on the application of the proposed method is described. The study results show that, the use of numerical simulations not only for product design but also during the testing and labeling phase, allowing a significant reduction in time to market and provides the company competition and economic, energy, and time savings

A new test procedure to evaluate the performance of substations for collective heating systems

The overall heat demand of a single dwelling, existing out of space heating and domestic hot water production, decreases due to higher insulation rates. Because of this, investing in efficient and renewable heat generation becomes less interesting. Therefore, to incorporate renewables or residual heat on a larger scale, district heating or collective heating systems grow in importance. Within this set-up, the substation is responsible for the interaction between local demand for comfort and overall energy performance of the collective heating system. Many different configurations of substations exist, which influence both local comfort and central system performance. Next to that, also hybrids exist with additional local energy input. To evaluate performance of such substations, a new experimental-based test procedure is developed in order to evaluate these different aspects, characterized by the two roles a substation has, namely as heat generator and as heat consumer. The advantage of this approach is that an objective comparison between individual and central systems regarding performance on delivering local comfort can be executed experimentally. The lab set-up consists out of three different subsystems, namely the central system, the domestic hot water consumption and the local space heating. The central system can work with different temperature regimes and control strategies, as these aspects have proven to have the largest influence on actual performance. The domestic hot water system is able to generate similar tap profiles according to eco-design regulation for domestic hot water generation. The space heating system is able to demand a modular heat load.

Life cycle environmental impacts of vacuum cleaners and the effects of European regulation

Energy efficiency of vacuum cleaners has been declining over the past decades while at the same time their number in Europe has been increasing. The European Commission has recently adopted an eco-design regulation to improve the environmental performance of vacuum cleaners. In addition to the existing directive on waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), the regulation could potentially have significant effects on the environmental performance of vacuum cleaners. However, the scale of the effects is currently unknown, beyond scant information on greenhouse gas emissions. Thus, this paper considers for the first time life cycle environmental impacts of vacuum cleaners and the effects of the implementation of these regulations at the European level. The effects of electricity decarbonisation, product lifetime and end-of-life disposal options are also considered. The results suggest that the implementation of the eco-design regulation alone will reduce significantly the impacts from vacuum cleaners (37%–44%) by 2020 compared with current situation. If business as usual continued and the regulation was not implemented, the impacts would be 82%–109% higher by 2020 compared to the impacts with the implementation of the regulation. Improvements associated with the implementation of the WEEE directive will be much smaller (<1% in 2020). However, if the WEEE directive did not exist, then the impacts would be 2%–21% higher by 2020 relative to the impacts with the implementation of the directive. Further improvements in most impacts (6%–20%) could be achieved by decarbonising the electricity mix. Therefore, energy efficiency measures must be accompanied by appropriate actions to reduce the environmental impacts of electricity generation; otherwise, the benefits of improved energy efficiency could be limited. Moreover, because of expected lower life expectancy of vacuum cleaners and limited availability of some raw materials, the eco-design regulation should be broadened to reduce the impacts from raw materials, production and end-of-life management.

Energy-efficient distribution transformers in Europe: impact of Ecodesign regulation

This paper assesses the impact of energy-efficient distribution transformers through the implementation of energy efficiency classes, as well as through mandatory standards that remove the worst transformers from the market. Energy-efficient distribution transformers can not only save about 1 % of all the electricity generated but can also save very large investments in power generation and transmission power systems. Technical solutions to reduce energy consumption of transformers are available, but the market penetration of high-efficient transformers is significantly lower than it could be. The paper analyses the main market and regulatory failures and identifies that the introduction of efficiency classes and minimum energy performance standards (MEPS) is the best way to foster energy performance in distribution transformers. Policies and measures supporting energy-efficient distribution transformers around the world are reviewed. The use of Ecodesign methodology do define possible transformer MEPS regulation is discussed for different types of distribution transformers, as well as the associated impacts. Sensitivity analysis in relation to key parameters (load factor and electricity prices) is analyzed. The energy saving potential and the environmental impacts are calculated until the year 2050 in the European Union, as well as at world level. The potential savings in the year 2050 represent about 35 TWh of electricity in Europe, equivalent to about four million tons of reduced CO2 emissions. For the world, the estimated impact in 2050 is about 450 TWh equivalent to about 180 million tons of reduced CO2 emissions.

Road lighting in change: User advice for designers

Road lighting practice in Europe is currently under change, the changes being induced by the European Union Ecodesign regulations, the rapid development of LEDs and the new CIE system of mesopic photometry. This makes it a good time to listen to the opinions of the end users of road lighting. What are the aspects of road lighting that the drivers value? What are the most difficult visual tasks faced by drivers at night? Are drivers willing to reduce the amount and quality of lighting to save energy? All these questions and more were presented to over 100 drivers aged 20–79 years in a questionnaire in Finland during the autumn of 2010. This paper summarises the results and discusses the expectations of drivers that should be considered when preparing future guidelines for road lighting.