b'TRANSITION DES FLUIDES FRIGORIGNESPlaying Catch-up With the U.S.The pressure to make space for A2Ls in the HVACR industry is also coming from south of the border, where the U.S. is phasing out HFCs and embracing equipment with lower-GWP alternatives (i.e., A2Ls) at faster rates than Canada. If Canadas regulations cannot keep pace, its HVACR players will face challenges finding and exporting products that align with these mismatched rules. Regulations are changing quickly in the U.S., says Thomas. For instance, they recently came up with new regulations regarding HFCs and air conditioners that say they must now have a refrigerant with a GWP of less than 700. That pretty well eliminates all of the existing refrigerants except for those that fall in the flammable category, which means, right now, we can import these new technologies and there is a shrinking market for our refrigerant technologies. In short, keeping pace means making more allowances for A2Ls in Canada. And indeed, that is what is outlined in the 13th edition of the mechanical code (read The 13th Edition of CSA B52: Ready for adoption). However, provinces are in various stages of integrating these revisions into their building codes.The Transformation at HomeCanada may be lagging behind the U.S. in some respects, but the refrigerant transition is still inching along on several fronts. For some, like the supermarket sector, the phaseout of HFCs has led to a shift from HFCs back to older prod-ucts such as ammonia and CO 2 . At the same time, chemical companies are in the midst of developing new molecules like HFOs, blending HFOs and HFCs to arrive at refriger-ants that achieve both non-flammable and lower global warming potential.What were seeing now is the chemical companies responding by trying to develop these chemicals that are low in GWP. Meanwhile, the manufacturers are responding to these new laws about where they have to be in terms of GWP levels, leaving the aftermarket sort of stuck in the middle.While this is happening, stakeholders are preparing the best they can to get their workforces ready to handle A2L on the field level.Moving to more flammable refrigerants will require service people to be retrained because they have never used Spring 2024 Insight11'