World News

ITALY: Beniamino Fambri, holder of a laurea magistrale in energy engineering from Italy’s Politecnico di Milano, was a double winner of student awards at this month’s 15th CLIMA World Congress.

UK: Mitsubishi Electric is to begin phasing out its Ecodan R32 heat pumps in Europe to be replaced by its extended next-generation range of Ecodan R290 units.

JAPAN/USA: Hoshizaki, the Japanese manufacturer of commercial food and beverage refrigeration equipment, is set to acquire US display case company Structural Concepts Corporation. 

JAPAN: Daikin has invested in Asuene Co Ltd, a Tokyo-based startup company that provides services to visualise CO2 emissions and support decarbonisation and ESG management.

INDIA: A worker at Carrier Airconditioning & Refrigeration has died as a result of what has been described as a compressor “explosion” at the company’s plant in Gurugram, India.

USA: Reports from distributors suggest the USA has reached a significant milestone in its transition to lower GWP refrigerants with sales of A2L equipment surpassing 50%.

USA: Chemours has appointed Nathan Blom as vice president of its liquid cooling portfolio.

BELGIUM: Eurovent has produced a new recommendation discussing the application of moisture recovery from extract air in general ventilation and combined ventilation and air conditioning systems.

JAPAN: Carrier is to introduce its data centre cooling solutions to the Japanese market for the first time at next week’s information and communications technology exhibition, Interop Tokyo.

ITALY: ADM, Italy’s Customs and Monopolies Agency, claims to have uncovered and seized nearly 500 tonnes of illegal refrigerant last year.

BELGIUM: Livio Mazzarella has been appointed president of REHVA, the federation of European heating, ventilation and air conditioning associations.

USA/TURKEY: Italian controls manufacturer Carel has announced two key leadership appointments within its group companies Senva Inc and CFM Sogutma.

USA/CANADA: A recall has been issued on 1.7 million window air conditioners manufactured by Midea and sold in the US and Canada due to concerns over potential mould growth.  

HUNGARY: Haier Europe Appliances Holding has completed the acquisition of Budapest-based air conditioning wholesaler and contractor Klima Kft.

BRAZIL: Nidec is to invest $120m factory in a new 55,000m2 factory in India for the manufacture of Embraco residential and commercial refrigeration compressors and electronic components. 

SWEDEN: Anders Mattson has been appointed CEO and president of Sdiptech, a technical business group with focus on infrastructures.

DENMARK: The Nordic Climate Group continues its growth in the Danish market with two new contractor acquisitions in the Jutland region of northern Denmark.

USA: Daikin has completed the installation of a solar power plant of nearly 1MW at its North American headquarters near Waller, Texas. 

JAPAN: Panasonic has developed an automatic fluorocarbon recovery system for air conditioning units with the aim of improving the efficiency of dismantling used air conditioners.

JAPAN: Paloma Rheem Holdings has announced the successful conclusion of its tender offer for the common shares of the Fujitsu General air conditioning business. 

NETHERLANDS: Chemours must pay a penalty of €1m for violating the European F-gas regulation by importing the high GWP HFC23 gas for use at its polymer and elastomer plant in Dordrecht. 

AUSTRIA: Ecop, the Austrian developer of a highly efficient, single-stage rotation industrial heat pump has secured €10.5m investment to expand its production capacities.

USA/ITALY: US testing company UL Solutions has announced an expansion of its facility in Carugate, Italy, to meet growing European demand for comprehensive heat pump performance and safety testing.

UK: To celebrate World Refrigeration Day (WRD) 2025 and its Cool Skills theme, the WRD secretariat is inviting individuals and organisations to share their successes.

SPAIN: New research has found that dimethyl ether (RE170) and ternary mixtures of the same refrigerant with CO2 and butane could improve the energy efficiency of vapour compression systems.

CANADA: Trane has officially opened its first Canadian Trane Rental site in Brantford, Ontario.

SWEDEN: Sales of heat pumps in Sweden bounced back in Q1, increasing by 38% compared to last year, despite low housing construction.