The workflow for work orders that involve assets that contain ozone depleting refrigerants is similar to other work orders, with a few added enhancements, designed to assist in keeping your company compliant with local and national laws. When an asset that contains refrigerant requires additional refrigerant to be added, the EPA requires that a Leak Rate Calculation be conducted to determine whether or not the legally allowable percentage of ozone depleting refrigerants has exceeded the threshold set for the specific type of asset. If the threshold has been exceeded, then the company must either repair the leak within 30 days or develop a Retrofit or Retirement plan for the asset. Additionally, each time refrigerant is added a leak record must be created, regardless of whether or not the threshold has been breached.
Leak Events
The leak event protocol, as defined by law requires the following:
- The date of the leak
- The date of the initial leak repair
- The steps taken to repair the leak
- The physical location of the leak on the unit
- How much refrigerant was added
- What is the system capacity?
- What refrigerant was added
- The current charge of the system
- Whether or not the leak threshold, for that type of asset, was exceeded
- The date and actions taken during the follow-up inspection
This information is entered into the leak calculator which determines if the leak has exceeded the set threshold for that asset type.
Trigger Rates
The following trigger leak rates apply for a 12-month period:
| Application Type | Current Leak Rate | Leak Rate Effective 1/1/2019 |
| Industrial Process Refrigeration | 35% | 30% |
| Commercial Refrigeration | 35% | 20% |
| Comfort Cooling | 15% | 10% |
| All other appliances | 15% | 10% |
Leak Rate Calculation
EPA outlines four acceptable methods that can be used either individually or in combination to assets full charge:
- Equipment manufacturers’ determination.
- Calculations based on component sizes, refrigerant density, volume of piping and other considerations.
- Actual measurements of the amount of refrigerant added or evacuated from the appliance.
- Use of an established range based on the best available data. This method requires you to document how you determined the full charge.
Full charge is necessary to determine the leak rate. For commercial refrigeration equipment, EPA says the trigger leak rate for a 12-month period is 35 percent of the full charge. According to the latest rule, there are two acceptable methods for calculating leak rate: annualizing and rolling average. However, the equipment owner must select and consistently use only one method over the lifetime of all the appliances located at a facility.
http://www.phaseoutfacts.org/leak+rate+calculation+requirements.aspx
Follow-Up Refrigerated Work Orders
When a technician has serviced a refrigerated work order, they are required, by law, to enter the addition or removal of any ozone depleting refrigerants, including the reason why the charge was changed. Technicians with the appropriate permissions can add refrigerant use via ServiceChannel Provider, while the work order is in an Open status, or the refrigerant information can be added via Service Automation at a later time. If the amount of refrigerant used is enough to breach the set leak rate threshold then a Leak Record will be created. Once the leak record modal appears, all information requested must be entered at that time. However, if the requested information is not entered a follow-up work order will be created. The follow-up work order is created so that the legally required follow-up and resolution to the leak can be properly addressed.