Annex 54 Country Report: Italy
This report summarizes the activities carried out in Italy regarding the use of low-GWP refrigerants in heat pumping systems. In Europe, a quest for environmentally friendly refrigerants began around 20 years ago because of the introduction of EU Regulation No. 40/2006 and 517/2014 on fluorinated greenhouse gases and the Kigali amendment to the Montreal protocol. The recent release of the updated version of F-Gas regulation (EU Regulation 573/2024) has introduced a clear direction towards the use of ultra-low GWP refrigerants, in some applications, set a threshold value for GWP equal to 150. Consequently, many ongoing research and development activities deal with this topic. The Italian research team consists of 3 different research institutes (National Research Council, Polytechnic of Milano, University of Padova) actively involved in numerous research projects about low-GWP refrigerants complementary to each other.