Panasonic Corporation has announced plans to accelerate its growth strategy for the air-to-water (A2W) heat pump and hydronic systems business in the European market.
As part of this strategy, the company will invest an additional 15 billion yen in its Czech Plant to increase production of A2W heat pumps, to meet growing demand.
Combined with the investment already announced last year, the total investment in the European region amounts to 80 billion yen. On 1 April, 2023, Panasonic will establish a HVAC business division Europe in Germany to transfer development, manufacturing and sales functions to the region and shift to regionally optimised management.
The Czech plant will double in size and expand heat pump production to one million units globally in the medium term.
Europe is at the forefront of efforts to transition to a carbon-free society and this includes complying with strict F-gas regulations. Panasonic’s strategy includes the recent acquisition of Systemair's air-conditioning business which was first announced in November 2022.
The acquisition of Sweden's Systemair will accelerate the company’s hydronic systems business with products manufactured at factories in France and Italy. This enables Panasonic to offer a complete lineup of hot-water supply, heating, and air-conditioning equipment for residential and commercial use, and provide solutions to meet a wide range of needs.
On the development side, a new R&D centre will be established in Milan, Italy, to develop products and services that meet local needs.
The R&D centre will develop residential and commercial hydronic systems and models that use low global warming potential (GWP) refrigerants, as well as conduct research on clean technology, sensor technology, and indoor air quality.
It will also strengthen cloud development to expand IoT-based services for customers after equipment delivery. Remote monitoring and fault detection of equipment will reduce the management workload and enable timely inspections and repairs.
In addition, the visualization of energy consumption and air quality will enable energy savings and an optimal indoor environment, resulting in the safe, reliable, and comfortable use of products for a long time.
At the same time, Panasonic is set to launch a range of R290 versions of its ECOi-W heat pump chiller.
Manufactured at its factory in France, the currently available 35kW unit will be joined by four more models with capacity ranges of 50, 60, 70 and 80kW.
With an intelligent control system also providing system regulation, the ECOi-W R290 can be equipped with a variable speed pump. It can also be equipped with fan speed control.