Arlington, Virginia, USA, 2 October 2018: Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute (AHRI) closely collaborated with Saudi Standards, Metrology and Quality Organization (SASO) in the development and implementation of SASO Standard 2874 (Air Conditioners – Minimum Energy Performance Requirements and Testing Requirements), said Henry Hwong, Senior Vice President, Standards and Global Operations, (AHRI). Speaking on Saudi Arabia’s updated regulations and level of collaboration between the two bodies, Hwong said Standard 2874 not only adopted AHRI standards for all applicable products but also established an exclusive “Path A” compliance for all manufacturers that are AHRI-certified. “AHRI worked closely with SASO to demonstrate the stringency and the applicability of its certification programmes to establish the exclusive path, which allowed AHRI-certified manufacturers to register and meet compliance without having to submit test reports for each model,” he said. “In addition, for configured applied products, such as chillers, AHRI also worked with SASO to establish an exclusive web portal, whereby AHRI-certified manufacturers can provide validation of performance to SASO directly.”

Henry Hwong

Hwong said AHRI, in recognising the importance of providing tested and certified performance data in real time, has made significant investments to provide the data, developing the necessary IT infrastructure, so that portals, “such as what was provided to SASO at no cost, can be provided to other regulatory bodies also”. As a non-profit industry association, Hwong said, AHRI’s goal is to provide industry services that will facilitate global trade, while ensuring the integrity of the market place and a level playing field for competition.

Hannah Jo Uy is Assistant Editor at Climate Control Middle East magazine. She may be contacted at hannah@cpi-industry.com