DfT confirms penalties for NRMM defeat devices

The Department for Transport has outlined how new laws aimed at preventing the use of emissions defeat devices in Non Road Mobile Machinery (NRMM), will be enforced.

These new laws, which cover construction and farming equipment, for example, are expected to be laid in the summer, before coming into effect across the UK and Northern Ireland from 2019.

The NRMM regulations cover equipment including construction machinery

As part of the new legal regime, manufactures of NRMM will be liable for fines of up to £50,000 if they are found to have installed defeat devices on any of their machinery for sale in the UK market.

DfT had previously proposed also making machinery dealers liable for fines — but this proposal was dropped by the government, after reservations had been expressed from industry during a consultation process.

Changes to the rules on NRMM were passed by the EU in 2016, paving the way for new emissions standards for carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter from NRMM across the continent (see airqualitynews.com story).

NRMM

Businesses manufacturing engines for use in NRMM for sale in any EU member states are required to have them type-approved, to ensure that they meet the relevant standards dictated under the directive. In the UK, the approval authority is the Vehicle Certification Agency (VCA).

Under the rules engines installed in NRMM are split into categories based on their ignition type and engine power rating. These categories are then given limits for specified gaseous output, known as the engine’s ‘stage’.

The latest changes to the regulations will also bring in more stringent emissions standards — Stage V — as well as bringing new engine categories — such as snowmobiles — into the scope of the testing regime for the first time.