JLL has entered into an agreement to add MSA Safety’s Parasense Refrigerant Tracking and Compliance capabilities to its facilities management platform Corrigo to create Corrigo RTC, it announced Sept. 23.
With Corrigo RTC, users will be able to track and report refrigerant transactions directly from their computerized maintenance management systems, which JLL says will reduce manual data transfer and user error, help identify and address refrigerant maintenance issues and help prevent refrigerant leaks and emissions.
The additional capabilities come as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has announced a final rule on how companies must manage, recycle and reuse climate-damaging hydrofluorocarbons, or HFCs, as directed by the American Innovation and Manufacturing Act of 2020.
The final rule, signed by EPA Administrator Michael Regan on Sept. 20, has provisions designed to reduce leaks from large refrigeration and air conditioning equipment. These include requirements for leak repair of appliances that hold 15 pounds or more of a refrigerant that contains an HFC or an HFC substitute with a global warming potential over 53. The rule will take effect 60 days after it is published in the Federal Register.
As the government introduces regulations mandating refrigerant tracking and the phase-down of hydrofluorocarbons, a strategy for compliance is far more sensible than “trying to skirt regulations,” JLL Technologies said in an April blog post.
“Today, you have to track appliances that are holding 50 pounds of refrigerant or more. Now, with the latest news, … it's down to 15 pounds,” said Scott Boekweg, product manager in charge of Corrigo’s refrigerant compliance at JLL Technologies. “Since we deal with a lot of businesses that have HVAC units and refrigeration units, we feel like this is an important thing to address for our customers, and it is a very difficult thing to track today.”
While the 50-pound threshold previously applied to equipment mainly found at property types like grocery stores or sometimes convenience stores, the new 15-pound requirement opens compliance requirements to other property types, such as restaurants and additional verticals, that may not already be tracking compliance, Boekweg said.
According to the EPA’s final rule, automatic leak detection systems are required for certain new and existing appliances that contain more than 1,500 pounds of refrigerant with an HFC or an HFC substitute that has a GWP of over 53. The rule also requires maximizing reclamation and reuse of refrigerants when possible and servicing and repairing existing equipment in certain refrigeration, air conditioning and heat pumps subsectors with reclaimed HFCs.
In many cases, operators use multiple applications to input refrigerant data, inputting the same numbers into separate places when dealing with maintenance and compliance. When the numbers “don’t jive,” and a company gets audited by the EPA, “that’s when we start to see issues,” Boekweg said.
The EPA can impose daily fines of up to $37,500 for noncompliance with refrigerant management and reporting, JLLT said in its April blog post. Just one pound of refrigerant can cost up to $80, providing an additional financial incentive to prevent and repair leaks and build out a rigorous refrigerant compliance system, it said.
Operators should get to know what systems they have in place, what refrigerant they are using and how much refrigerant is in the system, Boekweg said.
By embedding refrigerant compliance within Corrigo, refrigerant inspection and repair work orders can be scheduled for completion by internal or external technicians from within the CMMS, Boekweg said. “The work order itself contains all the information about the leak, its repair, its initial follow-up, verification and making sure that everything has been completed correctly.”
