HFC taxes & fiscal incentives for natural refrigerants across Europe – new publication by shecco

Despite the difficulties inherent in building consensus for an international agreement on addressing hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), and the unknown impact of the informal agreement on a new EU F-Gas Regulation reached at the European level, the transition to climate-friendly natural refrigerants has started. The question is: how can governments speed up the process? Is the upcoming EU F-gas Regulation the only answer?

shecco’s new publication, the "GUIDE⁺: HFC taxes & fiscal incentives for natural refrigerants in Europe" provides a comprehensive overview of existing and proposed fiscal measures in key European countries, aimed at reducing the use and emissions of HFCs in HVAC&R sectors while encouraging the switch to climate-friendly technologies.

HFC Taxes

An environmental tax on HFCs has been introduced already in four European countries while a number of states have considered or are still considering the benefits of an HFC tax scheme. The first countries in Europe to introduce such environmental taxes have been Denmark and Norway. In place since 2001, the Danish f-gas tax in 2013 reached €20.10 per ton of CO₂ equivalent (tCO₂eq), while the tax level in Norway is slightly higher.

The new GUIDE+ publication, provides detailed information in terms of current, future or possible tax levels (in €/tCO₂eq as well as per kg of commonly used f-gases) for Denmark, Norway, Slovenia, Spain, Poland, France and Sweden.

Green support schemes for natural refrigerants

In order to incentivise end-users to invest in energy-efficient and environmentally-friendly technologies using natural refrigerants and to reduce emissions of HFCs, several governments across Europe have introduced other fiscal incentives such as accelerated tax relief schemes and investment grants.

Accelerated tax relief schemes for investments in climate-friendly and energy efficient technologies are provided in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. Austria and Germany, as well as six regions of Switzerland and the Flemish Region of Belgium have opted for another approach by offering investment grants for environmentally friendly technologies that can also deliver also improvements in energy efficiency performance. "GUIDE⁺: HFC taxes & fiscal incentives for natural refrigerants in Europe" explains these programmes and provides an overview of the investment grants in each of the above-mentioned countries, the main requirements, and the available subsidy sizes.

More about the new GUIDE⁺

"GUIDE⁺: HFC taxes & fiscal incentives for natural refrigerants in Europe” is the first publication under shecco’s new GUIDE⁺ series, which will offer special, in-depth analysis on topics relevant for the natural refrigerant industry and will be available for purchase on shecco publications website.