Working Group leader: Arnaud Le Floch – KOHLER
Objective: in view of the evolution of the noise directives, the objective of this Working Group is to be informed of current or future changes and to actively influence the European Commission through our participation in the expert working groups of the European Commission and Orgalim.
Current topics: The next revision of the OND has been in preparation since 2015 and is intended to be more restrictive: lower allowed sound power levels and an increased constraint on powers greater than 400 kW.
As generator set manufacturers, we have to guarantee healthy products for customers but at the same time, we have to remain vigilant about the developments of the OND so that they do not become overly restrictive and remain realistic. The changes must be reasoned and acceptable.
If we look further, the European Commission takes now into account very precisely the harmful effects of transport noise on our health in a brand-new Directive, 2020/367/EC and the next step is the industrial noise, including generating sets. Even if the generating sets will not be impacted in the coming years by this new directive, we can expect new regulatory constraints at the end of the 2020s, to consider the effects of noise on the health of users.
In addition, some members of the Noise Working Group are also involved in writing of ISO standards currently in progress (such as ISO 8528-10, which defines noise test codes for generating sets).
Background: the European Commission has more and more focused on the topic of noise over the past 20 years. All the generating sets manufacturers were significatively impacted when the OND came into force in 2000, with impacts on the design to reduce noise emissions and laboratory tests with additional costs. But we must keep in mind that it was also an opportunity to make our products better and allowed customers to distinguish between the manufacturers who have the know-how and the others.