Acoustic Signatures of Heat Pumps. Final Report - Part 4; Annex 51

This document consists of three parts. In the first part the reference standards and the main certification and labeling schemes used in Europe for heat pumps were described. In a second part, the national laws of some member states participating in the present research project are reviewed. Where possible, in addition to the general laws that regulate the noise emissions on the various national territories, also eventual specific laws for the series of products covered by this study have been described. In some cases there are also cases of jurisprudence with the pronouncement of some national courts. As you can see, the situation in Europe is very uneven: some nations have a tradition of a few decades, while other nations havespecific laws only in recent years. Moreover, in some states there is not even a single law valid for the entire national soil, but the problem of noise has been regulated differently by the various local authorities (Municipalities or Provinces). As you can see in detail there are not even unique ways to determine the environmental noise: in some countries the noise should be determined on an annual basis, in many others on a daily basis (with the day divided into periods like day, evening, night) and in other countries noise can also be determined by measuring shorter periods. Although all member states have transposed Directive 2002/49/EC, only for some it forms the basis for environmental noise regulation, others (especially those already provided with specific national laws) have made use of the national descriptors previously adopted. In the latter cases, the 2002/49/EC is used only for epidemiological investigation purposes, and does not set specific limits (this is not the purpose of that directive), but is used only for the determination of the environmental noise caused by large road infrastructures (roads, railways and airports) and industrial noise. Finally in a third part, as data already available, the legal situations of other non-member states were reported, both near and far Europe, but judged nevertheless countries of interesting catchment areas for the heat pump market.