Cobham Technical Services (ERA Technology Ltd) is working with French consultancy BIO Intelligence Services on two EuP Lot studies, Lot 22 on ovens and Lot 23 on hobs and grills.

Lot studies 22 and 23

BIO Intelligence Service has already completed six ecodesign directive (2005/32/EC) preparatory studies and is carrying out a further four. BIO was recently successful in being awarded contracts for seven more studies by the European Commission. Cobham Technical Services is a subcontractor on two of these studies, on ovens, hobs and grills, which started in July 2009.

Dr Chris Robertson, Head of Reliability and Failure Analysis said, “Cobham has been providing consultancy and training on the ecodesign directive to industry since its inception. We are very pleased to be working with BIO on these studies and look forward to helping define sensible policy scenarios for these products”.

Ovens The scope of this study is all types of domestic ovens and ovens used for catering in restaurants, hotels and similar establishments. The study will investigate the ecodesign of ovens and in particular their energy efficiency. Research has shown that gas ovens produce less greenhouse gases than equivalent electric ovens to cook identical meals (except in Norway which uses almost no fossil fuels to generate electricity). Microwave ovens are more energy efficient for some cooking processes such as warming ready-meals but they have similar energy consumption to electric ovens when defrosting food or cooking meat.

Hobs and grills The scope of this study includes all types of domestic and commercial hobs and grills. One of the first aims is to define the scope of products in question as a wide variety of cooking appliances are used, especially for commercial catering. Many types of hob and grill are available including various electrical designs and also gas. Electric induction hobs are growing in popularity and are significantly more energy efficient than resistance heated hotplates.

Summary of the study

These studies comprise two essential steps; definition of the present situation and analysis of improvement potential.

Step 1: The scope of products is first assessed together with a review any relevant standards that already exist, acquiring economic and market data, investigating consumer behaviour (i.e. how these products are used), and a technical investigation into the products on the EU market.

Step 2: This information will be used to generate “base-cases” using typical bills of materials and energy consumption which will act as models to determine the environmental impact during the entire life cycle of typical products. A technical analysis of available technology and technology that is currently being developed will be carried out and will be used to produce a range of options that could result in potential environmental improvements in particular decreases in global warming gas emissions.

The results of these studies will be used by the European Commission to determine policies for ovens, hobs and grills which could result in new eco-design legislation –possibly from 2011/12.

Get involved

Further information

Cobham Technical Services runs public and in-house training on ecodesign and other environmental legislation and provides one to one technical consultancy. To find out more call us on +44 (0)1372 367444 or email.