Train refrigeration technicians to reduce global warming

Training standards should be adopted for technicians who handle refrigeration and air-conditioning in order to reduce global warming, Principal Secretary for Environment and Forestry Dr. Ibrahim Mohamed has said.
The PS noted that minimum training and certification requirements for technicians handling low global warming potential refrigerants should be adopted at the national level.
He said such training would allow only certified technicians to install, maintain, repair, recover, and dismantle refrigeration and air-conditioning (RAC) equipment and systems.
Dr. Mohamed called on entrepreneurs and stakeholders in the cooling industry to adopt modern technologies that consumed low energy and were operated using natural refrigerants that did not impact negatively on the ozone layer and climate.
He made the remarks Friday in a speech read on his behalf by the Director of Multilateral Environment Agreements Mr. Richard Mwendandu during a Green Cooling Initiative workshop for stakeholders held at a Nairobi hotel.
The PS lamented that most of the RAC equipment in the country were inefficient because they were based on obsolete technologies that contained refrigerants notorious for depleting the ozone layer or causing global warming.
“The situation is made worse by the fact that alternatives that are friendly to ozone layer and climate are not readily available in the country and have to be imported against an inadequate number of trained RAC service technicians,” he observed.
Further, Dr. Mohamed said the installation, servicing, repair and dismantling of RAC equipment operating with such refrigerants needed to be carefully evaluated and considered in the context of safety.
The training and certification workshop sponsored by the German Agency for International Development GIZ Proklima through the Ministry’s National Ozone Unit was attended by officials of technical training institutions, Ministry of Energy, Kenya Renewable Energy association, Kenya Industrial Research and Development Institute (KIRDI) and Heating Ventilation Air Conditioning (HEVAC) of Kenya among others.
The GIZ team was led by Katharina Arndt while Mr. Marindany Kirui represented the Ministry of Environment and Forestry.
By Njeru