World News

USA: A man from St Louis, Missouri, has been jailed for operating a Ponzi scheme based on trading in ozone-depleting R22. 

UAE: Emirates Central Cooling Systems Corporation (Empower) will provide district cooling services of 23,85RT to a man-made 10.5ha luxury beachfront development project in Dubai.

USA: Chemours has appointed Joe Kava to its board of directors, a man with broad knowledge of data centres, following 17 years at Google.

SWEDEN: Wholesaler Beijer Ref and heat exchanger manufacturer SWEP have extended their partnership agreement for a further three years.

BELGIUM: Eurovent has released a case study examining the differences in air handling unit energy consumption by energy class. 

ITALY: Lu-Ve has appointed Carlo Ferrari as global communication and events director.

USA/INDIA: Modine is to open a new Airedale by Modine facility in Chennai, India, in mid-2025 to meet increased demand for mission-critical cooling solutions.

SWEDEN/DENMARK: The Nordic Climate Group is expanding its presence in Denmark with the acquisition of Danish refrigeration contractor Kølegruppen. 

ITALY: Emicon, the Italian heating, refrigeration and dehumidification systems manufacturer, plans to raise €3m to support production capacity increases at its production sites in Meldola and Piove di Sacco.

USA: People with limited access to air conditioning may be at higher risk of seeking emergency care for health problems following exposure to wildfire smoke, a new study finds. 

INDIA: Mukundan Menon has been appointed president of the Refrigeration and Air Conditioning Manufacturers Association (RAMA), the Indian manufacturers’ group. 

USA: The US Department of Defense (DOD) has invested $90m to stockpile HFCs to support its military operations worldwide.

ITALY: A large ammonia spill at a food storage and distribution company in the province of Caserta, north of Naples, has resulted in the death of a 19-year-old maintenance worker.

SWEDEN/USA: Researchers claim to have have engineered a new type of refrigerator that can cool superconducting qubits to record low temperatures.

FRANCE: The latest report on the European HVACR market charts a rise in sales of dry coolers, chillers and data centre cooling equipment.

EUROPE: The European Commission has refused a call to re-evaluate the F-gas regulation 2024/573 in the light of a slump in heat pump sales.

SWEDEN: Swedish heat-pump systems and technology company Qvantum has raised €108m in Series C capital, including a debt facility of €15m, to increase production and drive European expansion.

JAPAN: Daikin is to carry out demonstration experiments of a new air conditioning system that will create spaces where people can feel more comfortable and healthy both physically and mentally.

BELGIUM: Ten years on from its establishment by the heat pump industry, the Keymark scheme has achieved its 10,000th heat pump certification.

JAPAN/USA: Hoshizaki has acquired its US distributor Cannon Marketing Inc (CMI) to strengthen its sales in southeastern United States.

JAPAN: The Fujitsu board has backed an offer of JPY256bn ($1.63bn) for its Fujitsu General air conditioning business from Paloma Rheem Holdings, owners of US HVACR manufacturer Rheem.

EUROPE: Certain types of specialist low temperature laboratory and medical equipment have been granted a temporary exemption from a European F-gas regulation ban which came into force on January 1.

SWEDEN/HUNGARY: Beijer Ref has acquired the remaining shares in Cool4U, the Hungarian HVAC distributor and representative of Chinese manufacturer Gree.

USA: Refrigerated intermodal equipment leasing company SeaCube is working with French shipping and logistics company CMA CGN to field test Thermo King's E-COOLPAC battery-powered refrigerated container genset.

USA: The US defence department's Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) has awarded contracts to three prototype novel air conditioning and heat pump technologies to reduce energy consumption at military bases.

SWEDEN/NETHERLANDS: The Nordic Climate Group has further expanded its operations in the Netherlands with the acquisition of Amsterdam-based IJskoud BV. 

BELGIUM: Despite a significant increase in the number of F-gas certified personnel in Europe trained on alternatives, previous forecasts of the number required by 2030 may have been grossly underestimated.