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. 

It’s a tough question to answer, but there is definitely a push toward more efficient gas technology in France, suggesting the country is ready for a switch. In our latest research as part of the Gas Heating Service, we covered this interesting market to find out about the evolving role of gas heating appliances in France.

The French market currently has an important share of gas heating (more than 40% of the dwelling stock) but it has not been a straight path. With the nuclear power programme for example, 70% of new homes built in the ‘70s received electric heating. Nowadays, gas heating represents more than 50% of new build. It’s clear gas has an important role and, from our latest research, we are certain of its future in the French market.

I attended the Fuel Cell Expo, part of Japan’s 14^th World Smart Energy Week conference and exhibition in Tokyo, mainly so that I could talk about the situation here in Europe. I presented the findings of a new study led by Delta-ee on business models for the stationary fuel cell market, which was funded by the Fuel Cell and Hydrogen Joint Undertaking.

At the same time, the Expo is the place to go for an update on what’s happening in the world’s most established market for fuel cells and micro-CHP. This post gives some of my key highlights from the fair, which centre on connectivity, competition and commercialisation.

The level of support for micro-CHP under the UK’s feed-in tariff programme was recently decided by the Government. The industry now has a little over two years to make a success of the current incentive. There are a number of companies who could benefit from this certainty, but no obvious choice for who will now look to drive the market.

Last week academia and industry descended upon the sleepy Portuguese university town of Coimbra to wrangle over the means for encouraging energy efficiency through changing user-behaviour. 

Looking to move the discussion beyond age-old discussions about the end-user in isolation, Delta-ee attended Behave2016 to reflect upon the role of supply-side stakeholders in the push for improved energy efficiency behaviour.

The first of our two-part blog on the state global micro-CHP market provides a run-through of the key events that shaped the outcome in 2015 – taken from the Delta-ee ‘Micro-CHP Annual Roundup and Market Outlook’ report.

2015 was the year of the first ‘double-dip’ in the micro-CHP market