At time of writing, the European Union (Withdrawal Bill) is progressing through the UK parliament. This legislation explicitly states that ““EU-derived domestic legislation, as it has effect in domestic law immediately before exit day, continues to have effect in domestic law on and after exit day.”

 This huge volume of legislation includes the Energy-related Products (ErP) Directive (previously known as the Ecodesign Directive 2009/125/EG) and this blog predicted shortly after the Referendum of June 23^rd 2016 that these regulations would be likely to be retained within UK law following our departure from the EU. This is because the objectives for improving energy efficiency and reducing harmful emissions are highly desirable.

The programme of implementation is also now well underway and is affecting the manufacture of a wide range of products being sold within EU member states, from electric motors to solid fuel boilers (see https://www.eceee.org/ecodesign/ ). Products are divided into Lots and the compliance date for local space heaters (Lot 20) was 1^st January 2018. Any relevant heating product or system that does not comply with the required standards cannot now be sold or installed. The legislation is not retrospective, however, so installations completed before 1^st January are not affected.

There are a number of product categories covered within Lot 20 and Annex II of the EU Commission Regulation 2015/1188 provides a useful list relating to requirements for energy efficiency and emissions control. Particularly pertinent to the gas-fired infrared radiant heating products as manufactured by Schwank are the following compliance requirements:

• Seasonal space heating energy efficiency of luminous local space heaters shall not be less than 85 %

• Seasonal space heating energy efficiency of tube local space heaters shall not be less than 74 %.

• Emissions of NOx by luminous local space heaters and tube local space heaters shall not exceed 200 mg/kWh input based on GCV (Gross Calorific Value).

Schwank, as a market leader in the manufacture of gas-fired systems, has long been at the forefront of technological advances, not least in consistently improving the energy efficiency and environmental benefits of our products.

For instance, our supraSchwank plaque (luminous) heater, supraSchwank 20/M, has a seasonal space heating energy efficiency of 97.7% (acc. to draft prEN 419_2017) and produces space heating emissions NOx @ GCV (mg/Kwh) of 16.  The figures for the Schwank superTube tube heater, 620/M+, are 93.8% (acc. to draft prEN 416_2017) and NOx @ GCV (mg/kWh) of 118.

Schwank is strongly committed to the aims of the ErP Directive and will continually strive to exceed its current targets and to embrace the energy efficiency and environmental aims applied to the HVAC sector in the future.