The Air-Conditioning, Heating and Refrigeration Institute said it will share its equipment and component performance standards with the Indian Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers.

The two organizations signed the agreement June 23 during a ceremony in Salt Lake City.

“This agreement is consistent with the spirit of the HVACR industry’s goal to reduce regulatory differences and facilitate international trade while maintaining high levels of performance,” said AHRI’s Executive Vice President Mark Menzer. “We are pleased ISHRAE is focused on strengthening its country’s HVACR performance standards and we are willing and ready to help the organization achieve this monumental task.”

According to ISHRAE’s President Ashish Rakheja, India has a rapidly growing need for solid, respected HVACR equipment performance standards.

“Our country has become a hub for multinational companies and we are experiencing major growth, especially in the construction of multimillion-square-foot buildings,” he said. “The engineers responsible for these projects are bringing with them an awareness of the importance of standardization and international best practices. In addition, India is becoming a major force in the green movement, led by the Indian Green Building Council and supported by a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) rating system and the launch of the energy conservation building code last year. For these reasons, we need to strengthen our equipment performance standards, which is why we turned to AHRI for assistance in this area through this agreement.”

The agreement sets forth a framework that promotes a process for effectively sharing AHRI’s standards. The agreement provides ISHRAE with the ability to more widely disseminate AHRI’s standards among the nation’s standards developers. It also establishes a process to ensure ISHRAE is notified when AHRI standards are revised and updated, and it provides ISHRAE greater access to AHRI’s standards developers to assist them with technical issues relating to India’s specific needs and conditions.