Happy Chinese Lunar New Year! The Year of the Rabbit started on February 3rd and I spent the evening at the Institute of Refrigeration's evening paper held in Birmingham on Hydrocarbons in commercial refrigeration. Although perhaps not the traditional way to celebrate, it was an extremely interesting evening which judging by the turnout, was a very popular event with others too.

According to tradition, the Rabbit is the fourth sign in the Chinese Horoscope and signifies calm, diplomacy, sensitivity and consideration for others. It is said that during this year, good taste and refinement will shine on everything and people will acknowledge that persuasion is better than force. A congenial time in which diplomacy will be given a front seat again and we will act with discretion and make reasonable concessions without too much difficulty.
I was mindful of this while listening to the presentation, and although the paper obviously described previous installations (as well as plans for the future), the pragmatic and yet novel approach taken by Waitrose, was a perfect balance of tried and tested technology being stretched and used in a leading edge application. So clever, and yet so simple. An integrated approach to the cooling and the HVAC requirement in the modern retail sector. Congratulations to all involved in the project and in presenting such an interesting paper.
Another characteristic of a rabbit year is that law and order will be lax; that rules and regulations will not be rigidly enforced, unlike the previous year which was that of the tiger which is thought of as a year of battles. Oh dear, surely this can't be correct and not a good omen for anyone expecting the F-Gas regulations to be enforced? The outgoing tiger year was the final month in which all air-conditioning systems with a rated output greater than 12kW but less than 250kW must have had the first inspection. The actual date for completing these inspections was 4th January 2011.
It has been estimated that something like only 3% of air-conditioning systems have actually been inspected. The figure may be slightly higher, but it doubtful that is it over 5% at best. These inspections are not meant to be some optional requirement that the operators of the systems can chose to ignore if they please. They are a legal requirement under European law and it seems that 95% or more of air-conditioning systems in this output range are now operating illegally.
The merits of air-conditioning inspections have been debated and the process is not without its critics. However, whether one agrees with the detail of these inspections or not, one must accept that the enforcement of them has been, and still is a farce. The lax approach taken by government to this makes a mockery, not only of the legislation itself, but of the many people from the ACR industry who have gained certification to enable them to carry-out the inspections only to find that operators have little incentive to comply. It is indicative of the lip-service that government pay to this industry and the environment. Perhaps if we were to turn all the non-compliant air-conditioning systems off, people might sit-up and take notice.
There is some wonderful work and innovation taking place in our industry. The Waitrose paper provided yet another fine example of this. To use the rabbit metaphor: the ACR industry is coming along in leaps and bounds. Unfortunately, the lack of enforcement for the air-conditioning inspections, F-Gas regulations, pressure systems regulations, and many other regulations, continues to divide the industry and allow non-compliant practises to continue unchecked. If 2010 really was the year of the tiger, it was one without teeth and claws.
Some would have us believe that the government's hands-off approach is because they trust us as a mature industry to self-regulate. The more cynical would claim that it is case of apathy rules, but no one cares.