The Low Voltage Department of Fundación para el Fomento de la Innovación Industrial has a long history of participation in different projects financed or co-financed by the European Commission. These are the most relevant ones:
Concerted Action EEPLIANT3
EEPLIANT3 is a concerted action funded by the European Union under Horizon 2020. Duration: 2019-2023
The overall objective of this Concerted Action is to help deliver the intended economic and environment benefits of the framework Regulation for Energy Labelling 2017/1369 and Ecodesign Directive 2009/125 by increasing the rates of compliance with them. This will be achieved through the coordination of the monitoring, verification and enforcement activities of Market Surveillance Authorities and other organisations across the Single Market plus Turkey, and by enhancing their knowledge, skills and experience.
More information can be found here: https://eepliant.eu/
ANTICSS Project
ANTICSS (ANTI-Circumvention of Standards for better market Surveillance) is a project under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme.
Duration: 04/2018-09/2021
The regulatory requirements on the energy consumption and performance of electrical appliances can be circumvented by manipulating the laboratory tests. This can be done not only by using hidden software that recognises the test situation and automatically optimises the appliance but also by misusing the manufacturer’s specific instructions. The definition of circumvention therefore needs to be extended.
Because harmonized standard tests cannot usually reveal circumventions, ad-hoc measurement methods have been developed for 18 suspicious cases in 8 different product groups.
New ways of circumvention identified
This is the main outcome of the EU-funded project “ANTICSS – Anti-Circumvention of Standards for better market Surveillance”. A research team involving 19 organisations from eight EU Member States spent three-and-a-half years analysing the circumvention of mandatory requirements of the European regulations and harmonized standards for ecodesign and energy labelling.
The LCOE led the work of the laboratories participating in the project.
Loss of trust is the biggest risk
The primary goal is to close loopholes and to make circumvention more difficult from the outset to prevent market distortions and misinformation on the environmental impact of products. “It’s not just about the loss of expected energy savings: far greater damage would be caused by the loss of consumers’ trust in the highly successful European legislation on ecodesign and energy labelling”
More information can be found here: https://www.anti-circumvention.eu/about-project/project-introduction
INTAS project
INTAS (INdustrial and Tertiary product testing and Application of Standards) is a project within the framework of the European Union’s Horizon 2020 programme.
Duration: 2016-2019
The purpose of the INTAS project was to provide technical and cooperative support and capacity building activities to market surveillance authorities. The need for INTAS arose from the difficulty faced by these authorities and other market actors in establishing and verifying compliance with energy efficiency requirements for large industrial products subject to the Ecodesign Directive, specifically transformers and industrial fans.
The project therefore succeeded:
– Support market surveillance authorities to ensure conformity for large products (specifically for transformers and large fans).
– Support industry to be sure of their obligations under the Ecodesign Directive and to ensure compliance in a way that is widely accepted by market surveillance authorities.
– Promote a common European approach to the assurance and verification of conformity for these products.
JAHARP 2020 Project
Fundación para el Fomento de la Innovación Industrial (F2I2), participates in the European initiative JAHARP2020 (Joint Market Surveillance Actions on Harmonised Products 2020) co-financed by the European Union.
Duration: 2021-2023
Based on 12 work packages, over 24 months (May 2021 to May 2023), the aim is to increase the impact and improve European market surveillance. To this end, laboratory testing, online and visual inspections will be carried out in 8 different product areas, and policies will be formulated to create robust and harmonised market surveillance procedures. For its part, F2I2 is involved in 4 of the 8 product areas:
JAHARP2020 pursues 3 main objectives: to eliminate dangerous or non-compliant products from European markets; to support the implementation of the new Market Surveillance Regulation (EU) 2019/1020 by developing a harmonised approach to the assessment of administrative requirements for products; and finally, to improve the work and understanding of market surveillance authorities by implementing cross-cutting training and tools common to all Market Surveillance Authorities.
