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Products
Energy Efficiency
Air conditioning, heating and refrigeration systems require
energy to operate, usually electricity or natural gas. We
continually invest in research and development to expand the
cost-effective energy efficient range of our products. We do
this because buildings consume about 40 percent of all
energy worldwide. And in the U.S., heating and cooling
accounts for 36 percent of the energy consumed in buildings.
In nearly every product category, we offer industry leading
energy efficient options for our customers.
Refrigerants
Customers look to Carrier to develop sustainable solutions
for refrigerants, especially in the climate change debate.
Refrigerants are the gases that are compressed to create
cooling for air conditioning and refrigeration. Many of
these gases are chemicals with environmental impact. For
decades, the industry relied on chlorofluorocarbon (CFC)
chemicals as refrigerants due to their energy efficient,
safety and economical benefits. In the 1970s and 1980s,
scientists began to observe that CFCs caused depletion of
the Earth’s stratospheric ozone layer that blocks harmful
ultra violet radiation from the sun. This led to an
international accord to phase-out ozone depleting
substances. Carrier did not wait for international mandates
to move. We introduced the first commercial and residential
air conditioning system using a non-ozone depleting
refrigerant in 1994 and have since led the industry away
from ozone depleting substances. For this achievement, the
U.S. EPA awarded Carrier its “Best of the Best”
Stratospheric Ozone Protection Award in 2007.
Today, Carrier continues to help international markets meet
new non-ozone depleting requirements, while focusing on the
next chapter of refrigerant evolution to reduce the direct
greenhouse gas effect. Many of today’s refrigerants are
based on hydrochlorofluorocarbon (HFC) chemicals because
they do not deplete the ozone layer, and compared to CFCs,
have reduced the greenhouse impact by as much as 80 percent.
Nonetheless, HFCs remain a greenhouse gas and Carrier is
committed to finding lower global warming alternatives.
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