World News

FRANCE: French retail stores Boulanger and Auchan have issued recalls for two portable air conditioners due to safety concerns. 

GERMANY: Scientists in Germany are said to have achieved an important milestone in the development of solid-state electrocaloric heat pumps.

USA: Atlanta-based cold storage operator and developer Envision Cold has launched  official launch of its cold chain platform with a $500m investment from an undisclosed capital partner. 

JAPAN: Researchers at the University of Tokyo claim to have generated electricity from latent heat, an achievement which, it is said, advances the possibilities of thermoelectric conversion and thermocells.

JAPAN: Daikin has reported sales of JPY1,094,715m (US$7,552m) in the first quarter (April 1 to June 30), an increase of 13.1% on last year.

USA: Projects involving the development of heat pumps and related technologies are included in $46m of funding just announced by the US Department of Energy (DOE).

USA: SkyCool Systems, the California-based manufacturer of radiative cooling panels, has secured $5m of funding to scale deployments of its patented technology.

USA: Copeland has received a $2.5m grant from the US Department of Energy (DOE) to support the company’s research and development of heat pump technology.

GERMANY: The administrator of Efficient Energy GmbH, the German manufacturer of chillers using water as the refrigerant, has indicated that he has a number of potential investors for the firm.

UK: Johnson Controls has named Marc Vandiepenbeeck as vice president and president, Building Solutions Europe, Middle East, Africa, and Latin America (EMEALA).

AUSTRALIA: Supermarket group Coles has signed an agreement with Australian energy company Origin which will see the companies co-invest in renewable energy and battery assets at Coles stores.

USA/CANADA: Daikin has recalled over 60,000 Amana packaged terminal air conditioners/heat pumps (PTACs) in the USA and Canada due to fire concerns.

GERMANY: The AIT-Group is expanding heat pump production with the acquisition of an adjacent factory at its headquarters in Kasendorf, Bavaria.

ITALY: Refrigeration controls and humidifier company Carel recorded consolidated revenues of €330.3m in the first six months of the year, an increase of 26.4% compared to 2022. 

CANADA: A British-Columbia-based seafood processing and cold storage company has been fined CA$755,000 (US$566,000) after pleading guilty to transporting and discharging ammonia into fish-bearing water.

JAPAN: Daikin is to build a new JPY20 billion (US$140m) residential air conditioning factory near Tokyo to satisfy home demand.

USA: The next resupply ship to the International Space Station will contain an experiment to learn how reduced gravity affects boiling and condensation.

JAPAN: Mitsubishi Electric has reported robust demand for its air conditioners in the first quarter of this financial year.

USA: Chemours has developed an HFO-based two-phase immersion cooling  (2-PIC) fluid for next-generation computing and electric vehicle technologies.

SOUTH KOREA: A new ammonia-based ship HVACR system developed by HD Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) has been approved in principle by ABS, the marine classification company.

SWEDEN/SOUTH KOREA: Refrigeration and air conditioning wholesaler Beijer Ref has entered the South Korean market through the acquisition of the HVACR division of DS Maref.

USA: Carrier has recorded second quarter sales of $6bn, a 15% increase on 2022. 

USA: Food producer Taylor Farms New England will pay $650,000 to settle chemical accident prevention violations related to the use of ammonia in its refrigeration systems.

USA: MSA Safety has secured a $24.5m contract with the US Navy to provide components for refrigerant monitoring systems.

GERMANY: A new survey of German plumbing, heating and air conditioning installers has shown that heat pumps accounted for around 26% of their business in 2022.

GERMANY: Domestic heat pumps can now be awarded Germany’s Blue Angel ecolabel, the independent endorsement of environmentally-friendly products and services.

ITALY: Controls manufacturer Carel is to acquire an 82.4% stake in Kiona Holding AS, a leading Norway-based software as a service provider of property technology solutions.