When, earlier this year, the International Standards Organisation (ISO) technical management board passed a resolution encouraging ISO technical committees for energy intensive industries to launch energy efficiency standards, the fan committee, ISO/TC 117, was already 12 months into producing their own standard, ISO 12759.

It has been estimated that fans consume around 20% of all electricity usage in Europe and they are also part of the forthcoming EU directive on Eco-design of Energy using Products (EuP) so, with the political focus on reducing carbon emissions and the prospect of soaring energy prices, the spotlight was bound to fall on fan efficiency. 

The fan industry is a diverse business and with no means of comparing the efficiency of different products, the UK fan manufacturers association proposed the development of an ISO standard for the energy classification of fans.  Support was immediately received from the USA and several other nations including China are now also looking at ways of classifying fan efficiency.

ISO 12759 is expected to be published in 2010 and will address the overall efficiency of both impeller only and motor-impeller combinations through a series of efficiency grade classifications with the lowest expected to be phased out over time.  Then, finally, specifiers and end users will be able to compare the efficiency of different products from different manufacturers, and legislators will have agreed standards by which to set future efficiency targets.  Something which the whole fan industry should support.

For a full article by Mike Duggan, Secretary of the ISO technical committee on fans, click here.

For further information please contact:

Robert Harness, Special Projects Manager, ebm-papst UK Ltd
Chelmsford Business Park, Chelmsford, CM2 5EZ
Tel: 01245 468555
email: info@uk.ebmpapst.com