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Description of data reported in 2013 to the California Air Resources Board's Refrigerant Management Program

                                       
                                       

                                       
                                       
October 5, 2015
                                       
                                       

                                       

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Stratospheric Protection Division
Office of Atmospheric Programs
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20460


In the development of the proposed rule, Protection of Stratospheric Ozone: Update to the Refrigerant Management Requirements under Section 608 of the Clean Air Act, the Environmental Protection Agency examined refrigeration system service records submitted to the California Air Resources Board (CARB) as part of its Refrigerant Management Program (RMP). This document describes the data set that was used.

CARB adopted the RMP in 2009 as a part of the state's Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB 32). The purpose of the RMP is to reduce emissions of high-GWP refrigerants from stationary, non-residential refrigeration equipment and from the installation and servicing of stationary refrigeration and air-conditioning appliances using high-GWP refrigerants. Effective January 1, 2011, facilities with refrigeration systems containing more than 50 pounds of refrigerant must conduct periodic leak inspections, promptly repair leaks, and keep onsite records.  Beginning January 1, 2012, facilities with systems containing more than or equal to 200 pounds must report annually through CARB's online reporting tool on leak inspections, repairs, and purchases of high-GWP refrigerants. (http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/rmp/rmp.htm)

This document describes data reported to CARB under the RMP for the 2013 calendar year. The data include annual reports for facilities with refrigeration systems containing a full charge greater than or equal to 200 pounds. Although reporting is not required for refrigeration systems containing a full charge between 50 and 200 pounds, some facilities have chosen to track leak inspections and maintenance records for these systems through CARB's online reporting tool as well. For the 2013 calendar year, approximately 600, 42,000, and 4,600 leak event records were reported for small, medium, and large refrigeration systems, respectively. 

Using these service records, EPA determined the distribution of systems based on their leak rates. Some characteristics of the distribution are shown in Figure 1.


Figure 1. Percentage of systems reporting to CARB in 2013 with various leak rates.


As shown in Figure 1, a majority of systems had annual leak rates under 20 percent. On the other end of the distribution, some systems had leak rates well above 100 percent, with new refrigerant added to the system during the year, in some cases many times, as refrigerant continued to leak out. Over 20% of systems reporting had leak rates above 35 percent. 



Figure 2 shows a distribution of the number of times refrigerant was added to each system. Over 200 systems had refrigerant added five or more times. One system had 21 refrigerant additions, and another had 22 additions.
Figure 2. Number of Refrigerant Additions to a Single System



As seen in Figure 3, most systems reporting to CARB contained HCFC-22 or R-404A.

Figure 3.

