In my previous blog I shared some of the Delta-EE Heat team’s key takeaways from ISH Digital, focussing on the decarbonisation agenda and product innovations. The next two themes we wanted to share are around how heating manufacturers are embracing digitalisation. While this is mainly being focussed around supporting installers – and rightly so - it’s important companies don’t overlook the other opportunities that digitalisation and connectivity can unlock.

Takeaway 3. Supporting installers in the heating transition is – rightly – a key priority for manufacturers.

In the heating industry – and for the Delta-EE Heat research team! - ISH is an event not to be missed. It’s a great place to hear about the latest heating product launches and innovations in one of Europe’s biggest heating markets, and from some of its biggest brands. This year’s ISH quite different from usual, with everything happening online via the new “ISH Digital” platform. While it felt a bit sad not to be able to catch up with contacts in person over a coffee or beer, for us it was still a very worthwhile event to attend.

There were several stand-out themes for us at the event: from product innovations, to new digital tools, to support for installers. Here are the first two of our major takeaways from the event. We’ll be publishing more in the coming weeks. 

There’s been a lot of talk about the potential for ‘Heat as a service’ & ‘Comfort as service’ (HaaS & CaaS) to revolutionise Europe’s heating markets, reaching more end-users with new, potentially low-carbon, heating appliances. While our research has turned up a number of HaaS-like offerings, so far, we’ve only found one example of what we consider to be ‘true’ heat as a service: Eneco, in the Netherlands.

On reflection, this isn’t surprising. The Netherlands has all the right ingredients that make it the key market where innovative, ‘new heat’ offerings are likely to emerge, and ultimately to succeed. The 7 key has are:

The Netherlands has set some of the most ambitious targets in Europe to phase out natural gas in heating (and elsewhere), aiming to be “natural gas free” by 2050. This is no small ask in a country where, today, almost 90% of the >7million homes use natural gas - usually via an individual boiler (or “CV-ketel”) as their main source of heating and hot water.

Since the gas free target was set, heat pump sales have grown rapidly, increasing numbers of new homes are being built without a gas connection, and the government subsidy supporting renewable heating installations – the ISDE – proved so popular, it had to be closed to new applications part-way through 2019[1].

There is a strong potential future for hydrogen as a means to decarbonise heat, according to the reports published by the UK’s Committee on Climate Change (CCC) on 22^nd November. Hydrogen is painted as one of the three key solutions (alongside electrification and improved energy efficiency) which will help the UK both decarbonise heat and create more energy system flexibility. This supports Delta-ee’s view that the best route to decarbonisation of heating is likely to be a ‘balanced transition’ across a mix of technologies and fuels.

As our Gas Heating Service highlighted recently, the UK is already one the most active countries in Europe regarding the development of hydrogen for heating: see projects including H21, Hy4Heat, HyNet, HyDeploy and H100. This latest report by the CCC only strengthens the argument that hydrogen could play a key role in heat, as well as in other sectors like transport and industrial processes.

The Internet of Things (IoT) and the refrigerant of the future were top of the agenda on our recent visit to Chillventa 2018 in Nuremberg.

#1: The “Internet of Things” (IoT) was a buzz phrase this year on HVAC-R company stands – was there substance behind the slogan?