Environment ministry, WB team up for ozone layer

Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The State Ministry for the Environment and the World Bank are teaming up to help 600 buildings in Jakarta switch over to more ozone-friendly air-conditioning systems.

Targeted buildings include hotels, shopping malls, hospitals and government offices, all built before 1985 and all employing centrifugal chillers.

These chillers are used for large buildings in a centralized air-conditioning system. One centrifugal chiller uses about 40 metric tons of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs-12), far higher than the 250 grams usually needed for air conditioners in individual housing.

Ministry head of ozone protection Tri Widayati said Thursday her office would initiate the replacement of the chillers through a scheme to be jointly designed with the World Bank and the United Nations Development Program.

"Hopefully, we can begin replacing the chillers with ones that are only compatible with ozone-friendly products, after completing the financing scheme by the middle of this year."

State-owned Bank Negara Indonesia has agreed to provide soft loans for building operators to replace their chillers. The estimated cost for replacing one centrifugal chiller is about US$150,000.

Erik Pedersen, a World Bank technical adviser on the environment for East Asia and the Pacific, said the bank might subsidize 25 percent of the cost for each chiller replacement.

"We are discussing how to convince owners to replace the chillers because if they replace them, they will save significantly on energy consumption."

He said reducing energy consumption could help ease the impacts of global warming.

"The replacement (of 600 chillers) could save one power plant in Indonesia."

Centrifugal chillers are obsolete in many countries, including Thailand, Mexico and Venezuela, having been phased out as part of the global campaign to reduce the use of ozone-depleting substances.

"China, India and Malaysia are to soon start (phasing out the chillers)," Pedersen said.

He said replacing the chillers was inevitable, with many CFC producers such as Venezuela and Argentina having stopped production.

"China will stop CFC production by July this year," he said.

Indonesia now imports CFCs from India and China.

CFCs, which are also used in refrigerators, foam production, fire extinguishers, aerosols and solvents, are the main destroyers of the ozone layer, which blocks out the sun's deadly ultraviolet rays.

The ministry has estimated that around 4,000 tons of CFCs are illegally traded in Indonesia every year, 10 times the country's annual quota of 400 metric tons.

Indonesia ratified the Vienna Convention and Montreal Protocol on Ozone Layer Protection in 1992, obliging it to phase out the use of ozone-depleting substances.

The protocol requires Indonesia to stop importing CFCs by December this year. The ministry recently said Jakarta accounted for 60 percent of all CFCs used in the country.