Insights from the Eurovent PG-FANS Chairperson
Uwe Sigloch is the Chairperson of the Eurovent Product Group ‘Fan Technology’ (PG-FANS) and the Vice President of Global Product Management at ebm-papst. He gives us an insight into the focus and activities of PG-FANS.
Could you tell us about yourself and how you got involved in the HVACR industry?
After graduating, I started working for a fan manufacturer for whom I also wrote my diploma thesis. Almost 36 years have passed since then, and I have remained loyal to fans and motors. If you deal with fans, the connection to the HVACR industry is a given, especially as most fans are used in applications in the HVACR industry.
What are the main focus points of the Product Group Fan Technology, and could you tell us the current challenges in the sector?
The main focus points are related to the revised regulation EU327/2011 for fans, especially the newly included topics dealing with circular economy requirements. The industry has to provide additional data and documents for example on how to service the products. The industry has to make spare parts available and fan manufacturers have to provide information about part load behaviour etc.
This will have an impact on how products will look in the future. Furthermore, the product group fan technology will provide guidance to the industry on how these new aspects could be handled with a clear target to create a level playing field for the industry.
Could you elaborate on what the Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) is and what impact it has on the Fan technology or ventilation sector?
The EPD is a statement describing the environmental impact of a product by describing its embodied energy converted to a CO2 equivalent. EPD comes from the building sector and fans are used in more than just buildings. This is a problem for the industry because the European Commission is working on a parallel path of Product Environmental Footprint (PEF). The recently published ESPR and revised MEErP indicate that the Commission will use PEF in future Ecodesign studies and regulations.
The impact on the fan industry is currently a huge extra workload to meet the demands of the marketplace. In the medium and long-term processes, it will be optimised to minimise this impact. In the short and medium term, the concern of the industry is that there are no Product Category Rules (PCR) for fans, and this results in a lot of confusion. There is a concern that fans are being compared, fairly leading to business conflicts and not environmental improvements.
On a positive note, it is making the industry look at how fans are designed, manufactured, distributed, installed and used.