HFCs refrigerants retained in us air conditioners and heat pumps energy efficiency standards

The Department Appliances and Commercial Equipment Standards Program was established to develop test procedures and minimum efficiency standards.During this process, refrigerant choice has been subject to screening. It appeared in this process that commercial unitary air conditioning equipment using dangerous refrigerants would likely need to include safety features to protect against the possibility of fire and explosion.New designs would have to be developed, new sensing/control capabilities to be implemented to mitigate the various risks, personnel to be trained to follow special safe handling and installation procedures, and therefore such alternative refrigerants were not considered.Source for the criteria document