Purpose

The Purpose of this directive is to harmonise the laws of EU member states relating to the emission of gaseous and particulate pollutant from internal combustion engines powering Non-Road Mobile Machinery (NRMM). It harmonises the type approvals of these engines and aims to reduce emissions by progressively tightening the allowable emissions and including more types of machinery. Prior to the introduction of the Directive, there were few regulations governing emissions from machinery. Road vehicles have been tightly controlled for some considerable time.

Scope

Engines for off-road mobile machines operating at variable or fixed speed and within a range of 18-560kW (24 - 760hp) for compression ignition (CI) ("diesel") engines and all cubic capacities of spark ignition (SI) engines.

The directive is intended ultimately to cover almost all engines used for mobile applications which are not subject to vehicle approval requirements. This includes small mobile machinery such as garden equipment, generators and welders, construction machinery, industrial trucks, fork-lifts and mobile cranes. Pony engines fitted to road vehicles are also covered but the scope does not include engines for fixed installations.

Replacement engines must meet the emissions requirements in place at the time the machinery was originally put into service.

Exclusions include:

• Engines for ships, aircraft, recreational vehicles, agricultural and forestry tractors and the armed forces
• Engines manufactured before the dates of introduction of the directive

Requirements

Mobile machinery manufacturers must ensure that they use engines with a type approval from an EC member state's approval authority. These engines bear a type approval number.

Engine manufacturers must make an application for EC type approval to the approval authority in a Member State. In the UK the authority is the Vehicle Certification Agency. The application should be accompanied by a manufacturer's information folder giving all technical information about the engines.

The approval authority will witness the engine tests carried out by the manufacturer or by an approved test house chosen by the manufacturer.

The approval authority must grant type approval to all engine types or engine families which conform to the information folder and which meet the requirements of the Directive.

An approval certificate must be issued for each engine type or family that has been approved.

Any request for amendment or extension of a type approval is to be submitted to the approval authority which carried out the original type approval.

The manufacturer must affix the following markings to each unit manufactured:

• the trade name or name of the engine's manufacturer

• the engine type and family, together with an individual engine identification number

• the type approval number

The type approval number is a five-section number with the sections separated by asterisks:

Section 1 starts with 'e' followed by a one or two figure code denoting the EU member state granting the approval.

Section 2 contains the directive number 97/68/EC followed by the category letters from the table below and the code for the test specification from the test section of the directive. These show the duty the engine is approved for.

Section 3 contains the directive number of the last amending directive applicable to the approval followed by the category letters from the table below and the code for the test specification from the test section of the directive.

Section 4 is the approval number given by the approval authority.

Section 5 is the number of times the approval has been extended to cover other engines of applications.

The engine manufacturer must operate a quality assurance system approved by the approval authority.

There are mutual recognition provisions for engines approved under road vehicle and tractor type approval regulations. There is no mutual recognition of engines approved under American NRMM emissions legislation, even though the rules and test standards are very similar.

Implementation dates

The Directive has staggered introduction dates, presumably to even out the workload on test houses. It also has two stages of emissions levels for some types of engine.

Engines produced but not sold by these dates have two years to be sold.

Hand held chainsaws, drills, brush cutters, hedge trimmers, stone saws and SN:3 engines with a horizontal shaft have an extra 3 years from the above dates to comply with stage II.

There are some derogations for SI engines produced in small volumes.

Enforcement

The Directive 97/68/EC and its amendments have been implemented in UK law by: