Daikin extends Manchester heat pump MoU

UK: Daikin Europe has extended its collaboration with the Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) by signing a five-year collaboration agreement aimed at scaling up low-carbon heating across the city-region.

The new agreement follows the success of the previous MoU between GMCA and Daikin, which focused on decarbonisation and the transition to low-carbon heating, developing green skills and jobs for Greater Manchester.

Greater Manchester is one of the UK’s most successful city-regions, home to more than 2.8 million people and with an economy bigger than that of Wales or Northern Ireland.

“Our partnership has delivered low-carbon heating technology through the installation of 1,500 heat pumps, while educating our young people about sustainable technologies and boosting our green skills offering,” said Greater Manchester mayor Andy Burnham.

Under this renewed partnership, Daikin UK will chair Greater Manchester’s newly formed Low Carbon Heating Industry Advisory Group, bringing together businesses and policymakers to strengthen collaboration across the region’s green economy, tackle decarbonisation challenges, and help shape Greater Manchester’s journey to net zero.

The renewed commitment plans to install 64,000 low-carbon heating systems across Greater Manchester between 2025-2030. It also intends to create a heat pump leasing offer for Greater Manchester residents, avoiding the need for upfront costs. 

To support the installs, Daikin is investing in a new training centre in Trafford Park to open in summer 2025, which will bring training capacity up from 1,400 people to 4,200 annually. It will also offer opportunities to people who meet the required qualifications but don’t have the means to fund themselves to do the course.  

Daikin will also be helping GMCA to tackle homelessness in the region and will support the Embassy Village project, providing 40 high quality homes in Manchester for the homeless with a village hall and green space for sports, socialising and growing plants. Daikin will oversee the installation of the 40 heat pumps already donated in partnership with contractor Temperature Control. It will also provide heat pump bootcamp training to residents as well as mentoring and volunteering by Daikin’s Manchester team.

Daikin will connect at least 170 heat pumps in Greater Manchester’s social housing through the 5G Innovation Region funding by March 2026, embed tariff support and connectivity into any social housing contract for heat pumps and work with energy providers to launch a heat pump type-of-use tariff for Daikin and promote this to the connected homes.

Daikin UK MD Tomoji Miki said: “Over the past two years, we’ve advanced decarbonisation and tackled the skills gap crucial for the net zero transition. Daikin is committed to Greater Manchester’s 2038 carbon neutrality target and supporting the region through innovation and investment.”

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BELGIUM/UK: Daikin Europe has signed a partnership with the Greater Manchester Combined Authority to create a test-bed for net-zero technologies and services in public buildings, including social housing. Read more…