How bespoke solutions are powering the heat pump revolution
With the ambitious goal of installing 600,000 heat pumps by 2030, the pressure is on for Ireland to achieve the targets set out in the National Development Plan 2021-2030. It pledges: "over the next decade the vast majority of new homes will be heated by heat pumps or waste heat from district heating as the regulations that apply to new homes will be further tightened", while existing homes will see 400,000 heat pumps replace older, less efficient heating systems.
At Xylem, we’re helping to lead the transition to heat pumps with a high-tech and tailored approach that offers our partners everything they need to deliver the most effective heating solutions now and into the future.
Bespoke heating solutions
Two years ago, Xylem invested in an OEM European Centre of Excellence (CoE) at our facility in Axminster in the UK. Our focussed team of experts, who have decades of experience in understanding customers’ specific requirements, are ready to provide bespoke products for Irish and UK customers.
This new generation of customised solutions, based on each customer’s requirements, is making us the partner of choice for OEM solutions, whether that's from our standard product range, or engineered-to-order special set-ups.
The ability to scale
Our Centre of Excellence enables full local assembly with a dedicated team of engineers who can work on prototypes and, when approved, full production models, allowing partners to scale to meet the growing demand for heat pumps and modernised underfloor heating systems.
Kevin Devine, Sales Director, Xylem Water Solutions, explains:
'Customers can make significant efficiency gains and cost savings by outsourcing their processes to Xylem's OEM facility, be that from a standard product range, or engineered to order specific solutions. What could take 7 to14 days in a factory, or at their own facilities, Xylem can now turn around and ship within 1 to 2 days. Distributors and other customers can equally benefit tremendously from working with Xylem as a one-stop-shop for their packaged solutions.'
Getting smart about water circulators
New smart circulators like the ecocirc offer best-in-class energy efficiency (EEI level ≤ 0.18) and are ideal for underfloor heating systems. Thanks to an electronically controlled motor with intelligent speed control, the ecocirc+ is capable of automatically analysing and adapting to the optimal settings for its environment to reduce power consumption by up to 80%.
For industrial needs, the Ecocirc XL and XLplus can adopt different operating modes according to the situation, yet they’ve been designed with simplicity and efficiency in mind and are deliberately easy to install and start up.
Retrofitting that doesn’t cost the earth
Heat pump deployment is set to play a major role in Ireland’s transition to Net Zero carbon and, as we look ahead to a new era of heating, it's more important than ever that the accompanying pumps, circulators and heat exchangers exceed efficiency requirements and can be easily retrofitted to offer a plug-and-play solution.
Our assets’ ability to self-optimise to ensure the lowest energy consumption, as well as to be tailored to meet the precise requirements of your thermal applications, is setting the bar high. And where needs are more complex, Xylem's dedicated OEM Centre of Excellence team can give you the flexibility to quickly customise our readily available solutions to meet the emerging needs of the market and help Ireland meet its targets.
First published in Building Services News, Ireland July/August 2023 edition
By Kevin Devine, Sales Director, Xylem Ireland