At its recent Annual General Assembly on 14 January ASERCOM outlined its activities over the past year and tackled the key issues facing the refrigeration and air conditioning industry.

More than 70 guests from all branches of the industry took part in the event in Brussels where they exchanged views and opinions and networked.

As the event concluded ASERCOM's president Claude Blanc said: “As an association, we can only grow and develop if we have an open ear for the issues that affect our industry. Our member companies as well as the entire refrigeration industry stand to benefit from a regular exchange of information and ideas. We are therefore especially delighted about the positive response to our meeting.”

A total of eight speakers addressed a keenly interested audience during ASERCOM's General Assembly. The first speaker was Stephen Yurek, president of the US cooperation partner AHRI, who provided insights on the research activities of his association in the field of flammable refrigerants. This was followed by updates on the Ecodesign and F-gas Regulations and on the options for saving energy in the use of frequency inverters. Julian Pfaffl, convenor of the Certification Committee, was able to report good news about ASERCOM's certification programme for condensing units: in 2015, it successfully certified the performance data of 81 condensing units.

The presentation by Wolfgang Zaremski, president of VDKF (Association of German Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Contractors), on market surveillance, a crucial issue for the industry, caused quite a stir. In his contribution, he emphasised that the indicated performance data of condensing units can only rarely be validated by wholesalers, fitters and users. At the same time, Zaremski presented initial potential solutions: generally marking the units with QR codes could, for example, facilitate faster access to the registered performance data on ASERCOM's website. It would also provide protection against the purchase of counterfeit products, argued Zaremski.

On the eve of the Annual General Assembly, ASERCOM also unveiled its new logo during a celebratory dinner. In future, the association will be represented by a symbol made up of three interlocking, stylised ice crystals.

All presentations given at the 2016 Annual General Assembly can be downloaded from ASERCOM's website at www.asercom.org/asercom-holds-annual-convention-2016.