The Biden Administration recently announced a historic set of actions across the federal government to phase down super-polluting hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs). As a part of these actions, the General Services Administration (GSA) is reviewing Best in Class contracts to ensure compliance with the Federal Acquisition Regulation clauses that support HFC emission reductions.
The contracts are pre-vetted, preferred sources for federal agencies to buy from in order to eliminate contract redundancies and deliver more savings, value and efficiency. These commitments build on last year’s bipartisan, job-creating American Innovation and Manufacturing (AIM) Act of 2020, which is helping to avoid up to 0.5 degrees Celsius in global warming, create 33,000 U.S. jobs, spur $12.5 billion in new investments in the U.S. economy and bolster the global competitiveness of U.S. industries.
Also as part of the actions, the U.S. Department of Defense will take steps to advance innovation and testing to identify HFC alternatives and technologies. The department will invest more than $8 million over the next five years to identify and qualify suitable low-global-warming-potential (GWP) alternatives to high-GWP HFCs in applications with military-unique performance requirements. These efforts include:
• Evaluate low-GWP alternatives for refrigerants in ground vehicles, aviation systems, environmental control units, fields kitchens and other military equipment.
• Evaluate low-GWP fire suppressants in ground vehicles and aviation systems.
• Research low-GWP refrigerants to replace HFC refrigerants used in Naval systems.
For more information on this announcement, refer to this fact sheet.
Dan Hounsell is senior editor, facility market.
