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.” Here, Kevin Devine from Xylem Water Solutions UK & Ireland examines how the targets can be achieved.

Xylem is helping to lead the transition to heat pumps with a high-tech and tailored approach that offers its 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 its facility in Axminster in the UK. The focussed team of experts, with 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 Xylem the partner of choice for OEM solutions, whether from its standard product range, or engineered-to-order special set-ups.

The ability to scale

The 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.

Xylem 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. Xylem can now turn around and ship within one to two days what used to take seven to 14 days in a factory, or at clients’ own facilities. Distributors and other customers can equally benefit tremendously from working with Xylem as a one-stop-shop for their packaged solutions.

High-tech lowers energy usage

Xylem’s Lowara Hydrovar intelligent variable speed pump controller, named Best Energy Efficient Product at the SEAI Energy Show, controls the speed of a motor to match performance to demand. By adjusting performance in this way, it ensures pump systems only use the energy that is necessary, saving up to 80% at partial loads alone.

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. Due to its electronic 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 have been designed with simplicity and efficiency in mind, and so are deliberately easy to install and start up.

Retrofitting need not 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-andplay solution.

Xylem’s assets’ ability to self-optimise to ensure the lowest energy consumption, as well as to be tailored to meet the precise requirements of all thermal applications, is setting the bar high. Where needs are more complex, Xylem’s dedicated OEM Centre of Excellence team can give the flexibility to quickly customise its readily available solutions to meet the emerging needs of the market and help Ireland meet its targets.

For more information on Xylem water technology solutions across the lifecycle of use, visit www.xylem.com/uk