FGAS Regulations – Ensure Your Compliance

If you’re operating stationary refrigeration, air conditioning or heat pump equipment then you probably already know you have legal obligations with regard to the Fluorinated Greenhouse Gases Regulations (FGG) legislation. But, from our experience, whilst companies are aware of FGG there is some confusion as to what’s actually required.

The UK is committed to contain, prevent and reduce emissions of F gases as part of the EU’s obligations under the Kyoto Protocol. The FGG 2009 regulations, when applied to the refrigeration industry, relate to areas such as:

  • Leakage checking
  • Recovery of F Gas from equipment during maintenance, service & end of life
  • Equipment labelling

The legislation is regulated by your local authority, Environment Agency or similar body depending on your location. If the local authority is the regulator in your area a variety of its departments could take action when it comes to F gas regulatory work – for example Trading Standards, Environmental Health, Food Safety etc.

The regulator has a range of options at its disposal to ensure compliance and will use the one it believes best achieves this. If an organisation was not to comply the regulator may do the following:

  • Provide advice and guidance to ensure compliance
  • Serve an “enforcement notice” – if a person has contravened, is contravening or likely to contravene the regulations
  • Serve a “prohibition notice” – if specific requirements are contravened or there’s a risk that they will be contravened and such contravention will involve “an imminent danger of serious pollution of the environment” The regulator using this notice can insist on a piece of equipment being shut down or even full site closure.

Operators are required to keep records for each piece of equipment they have, detailing any work carried out on the equipment, whom it was done by, details of any refrigerant added or removed. Anyone committing an offence under these regulations is liable to criminal prosecution.

At Aqua Group all of our Service Engineers are fully F Gas trained and up to date with the exact requirements of the legislation. When we commission your equipment for you we check it after install to ensure there’s no F gas leakage. We also label new equipment in the correct way and are able to give advice on record keeping to ensure your full compliance with FGG 2009 regulations.