The beauty contest that nobody won – or how joint efforts brings high performance equipment to the market

Panel: 8. Buildings: technologies and systems beyond energy efficiency

This is a peer-reviewed paper.

Authors:
Agneta Persson, eceee President, Sweden
Lovisa Larsson, WSP Sveriga AB, Sweden

Abstract

A unique co-innovation process between housing manufacturers and manufacturers of heating and ventilation systems has led to the market introduction of new high-performance combined compact heating and ventilation systems for energy-efficient single family-houses in a Nordic climate. The background of the project was lack of adequate equipment on the market, a generally increased energy-efficiency awareness and stricter national energy-performance requirements.

The project started 3 years ago with a technology procurement initiated by the Swedish Energy Agency’s purchaser group for energy-efficient single-family houses, BeSmå. The purchaser group had identified a need for cost-efficient combined heating and ventilation systems for single-family houses with a low energy demand in a Nordic climate. Heat pumps and ventilation systems were readily available on the market, but they were over-sized with regards to installed power, needed too much space and were too costly. So BeSmå decided to stimulate manufacturers to deliver high-performance combined H&V systems.

Six tenders were achieved. Four of the tenders were very promising, but none of them achieved all of the technology procurement’s mandatory requirements. Hence, no winner could be awarded. It appeared to be a beauty contest without a winner. However, the BeSmå purchaser group saw the large value of the received proposals. The Swedish Energy Agency agreed to turn the project into a joint development project between housing manufacturers and equipment manufacturers, and this has led to the imminent market introduction of at least three new combined compact heating and ventilation systems.

This paper presents a market transformation project aiming at more energy-efficient single-family houses. It presents the process from identification of the need to the market introduction, including the potential for energy efficiency in the Swedish building stock and detailed information on the purchaser group’s requirements.