New Methodologies for Effective Market Surveillance of Large Fans with the INTAS Project

Fan Efficiency Metric & Market Surveillance

The goal of the INTAS project, funded by the EU’s Horizon 2020 programme, is to provide technical and cooperative support, as well as capacity building activities, to Market Surveillance Authorities (MSAs). The need for the INTAS project arises from the difficulty that MSAs and market actors face in establishing and verifying compliance of large industrial products. Large fans are subject to energy performance requirements under the Ecodesign Directive and are one of the two products in the project's focus.
Specifically, INTAS aims to:
- Support European Member State MSAs deliver compliance for large fans;
- Support industry to be sure of what their obligations are under the Ecodesign Directive and to deliver compliance that will be broadly accepted by MSAs;
- Foster a common European approach to the delivery and verification of compliance for large fans.

In a first stage, INTAS has analysed the existing testing avenues in Europe and beyond, and explored test standards, facilities, procedures and methods already in place for large fans.
Now, it is in the phase of defining an effective compliance framework for MSAs and manufacturers and will also conduct real evaluation and testing exercises.
Testing and evaluation methods INTAS is considering at present include:
1) Those based on current industry practices for which INTAS will investigate the strengths and limitations of:
a/ scale-model testing, i.e. testing a smaller kW fan of the same design as part of series of larger fans and extrapolate findings for the larger models of the same design
b/ part load testing, i.e. testing a fan in a part load operational point and calculating/extrapolating performance at the best efficiency point and seeing if the performance of such approaches in independent laboratories might be suitable for Ecodesign verification purposes.
2) Participation in witness tests or factory acceptance tests to define which procedures could be specified for MSAs to assist at manufacturers’ premises tests.
3) Evaluation of a consolidated approach for auditing manufacturers conformity assessment procedures (Art. 8 of DIR. 2009/125/EC) to define recommendations on required documentation of conformity assessment, in alignment with MSAs and industry.

INTAS will finally evaluate the results of the previous processes and ensure that the proposed methodology is valid and reliable for national MSAs.
Throughout the entire project, INTAS will foster market surveillance collaboration between MSAs and raise awareness and information exchange of the product energy performance and market surveillance among key stakeholders.