The new Clean Cooling Collaborative-funded, ASEAN Cool Initiative aims to accelerate the implementation of the ASEAN Regional Policy Roadmap for Energy Efficient Room Air Conditioners by providing technical assistance and capacity building on Minimum Energy Performance Standards (MEPS) and labels in the region. It will be implemented by the ASEAN Centre for Energy (ACE) across the region, with support from United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) – United for Efficiency (U4E), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) and the International Institute for Energy, Conservation (IIEC).

Across the ASEAN region, the project will accelerate the adoption of the ASEAN regional roadmap on air conditioners to enable countries to go straight to the more ambitious Regional Phase II levels. This will involve:

• Undertaking data collection on products in the market and a technical analysis for the government on updating regulations.
• Developing stringent regulations, including MEPS and refrigerant requirements on room air conditioners which will create a mandatory floor for the products entering the market.
• Supporting governments on stakeholder engagement and consultations.
• Conducting an analysis to demonstrate the positive impact of the proposed MEPS levels, low global warming potential refrigerants, and labels.
• Awareness raising with local SME manufacturers, assemblers, suppliers.
• Updating the regional policy roadmap to cover all air conditioners with cooling capacities up to 4.5 kW.
• Updating the regional analysis which will be used for a policymaker awareness raising campaign on the benefits of the updates MEPS levels.
• Organization of regional meetings and awareness raising, as well as stocktaking on agreed MEPS levels.

Dr Nuki Agya Utama, ACE Executive Director, said in praise of the project, “The ASEAN Cool Initiative could provide a tremendous opportunity to build on the strong sense of community within the region and on the conviction of ASEAN member states to work together to harmonise MEPS and labels. Together with the ACE’s existing activity such as for CSPF project (Phase I & II), it will result in a more robust and sustainable transition to energy efficient air conditioners and the savings, both in costs to consumers and reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, will be considerable”.

In March 2023, Singapore became the first country in the ASEAN region to adopt the Regional Phase II Minimum Energy Performance Standards (MEPS) levels for air conditioners laid out in the ASEAN Regional Policy Roadmap for Energy Efficient Room Air Conditioners, which was endorsed by ASEAN Ministers of Energy in September 2021.  Over 2024-2025, Singapore’s National Environment Agency will:

• Enhance MEPS for multi- and single-split air conditioners, refrigerators and lamps.
• Introduce new MEPS for televisions and portable air conditioners
• Extend the Mandatory Energy Labelling Scheme (MELS) to portable air conditioners and enhance existing MELS for lamps.

More details may be found at the Singapore National Environment Agency website.