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DAIKIN Altherma Flex Type Wins Environment & Energy Innovation Award For Environmental Technology

The world-first heat pump for multiple occupancy buildings, Daikin Altherma Flex Type air-to-water heat pump, has won the Innovation Award for Environmental Technology at the Environment and Energy Awards. The award was presented at a glittering ceremony on Tuesday 24th May at the National Motorcycle Museum, Birmingham, as part of Sustainability Live.

Daikin Altherma Flex Type outclassed short-listed contenders, including Environmental Innovations, Enval, Sainsbury’s and Aeolus Technologies to scoop the award and was among a record number of entries to this year’s competition.

Peter Verkempynck, Managing Director of Daikin UK said: “The Daikin Altherma Flex Type heat pump is a genuinely innovative product, capable of providing highly energy efficient heating and hot water for multiple occupancy buildings, from domestic apartments and university accommodation, to schools and even prisons. As a wholly-owned subsidiary of Daikin Europe, Daikin UK is delighted that the Environment and Energy Award judges have recognized this innovation and the contribution that the Daikin Altherma Flex Type can make to low carbon buildings of the future.”

The Daikin Altherma Flex Type heat pump is the first system to allow independent control and billing of heating and hot water systems within each individual dwelling, with the whole building system powered from community-based outdoor units, each of which can serve up to ten individual dwellings.

This product has remarkable efficiency with COPs of up to 3.5, resulting in a 27% reduction in primary energy use, 59% fewer CO2 emissions and 33% lower operating costs compared with an installation of standard efficiency individual gas boilers.1 It also provides optional cooling through heat recovery technology, a feature that will become more of a necessity as buildings become more air tight.

One of the key features of the Daikin Altherma Flex Type is that it is a high temperature heat pump system, and therefore ideal for retrofitting in apartment buildings. As it needs no immersion heater to provide water flow temperatures of up to 80°C, it can be used with existing heat emitters such as radiators. Since the pipework connection between outdoor and indoor units is made by small diameter refrigerant piping, only a small sized utility shaft is needed to accommodate the system’s connections, making it suitable for most retrofit situations.

Because Daikin Altherma Flex Type uses renewable energy to provide an extremely efficient system compared with traditional heating and hot water boiler systems, it is a much more sustainable solution for high density housing developments.

As a result, the reliance on fossil fuels is much reduced and there is no need for on site fuel storage tanks, shared flues, gas supply lines or additional ventilation. For off-gas areas, this is a major advantage, as it allows housing providers to move away from old inefficient electric storage heaters, or oil or LPG powered systems, thus reducing the environmental impact of heating homes in rural and off-gas areas. The system is a renewable energy solution, applicable on a much greater scale than any other air source heat pump.

As well as improving energy efficiency levels, Daikin Altherma Flex Type can help to reduce the incidence of fuel poverty. The increased number of households that fall into the fuel poverty trap has increased significantly over the past five years, particularly as fuel costs are continuing to rise. Around 70% of household energy is used for heating and hot water. Daikin Altherma Flex Type reduces energy costs significantly, especially for properties off the mains gas network, so it can help to alleviate fuel poverty.

Note 1: Simulation calculation carried out on an apartment building in Belgium: 5 floors, 22 apartments, average size per apartment: 107m²; all apartments are assumed to be heated with under floor heating and radiators.