Welding Equipment under the Energy-related Products Directive

Summary A broad range of energy‐using products have been analyzed to shape the eco‐design requirements for the European market under the Ecodesign Framework Directive 2009/125/EC in the last several years. Only recently, this approach also addressed production equipment, including ovens, furnaces, machine tools, and related machinery. Welding equipment has been subject to such an analysis as part of the study on machine tools. This article summarizes the individual steps of this technical, economic, and environmental analysis to facilitate the understanding of the policy intentions: The study followed a standardized methodology and identified, through this approach, a significant energy savings potential of 7.6 petajoules per year and suitable policy options. The article discusses these options, addressing in particular the challenges faced by industrial equipment. Some shortcomings of the methodology to be used have to be stated. These are time and resource constraints to develop policy measures with adequate resources, uncertain market evidence, and the challenge to forecast the effect of engineering options not yet implemented in a product. Under these conditions, the findings are a compromise between feasibility and scientific robustness.