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Van de Sande elected AREA president

GREECE: Coen van de Sande, director of Dutch association NVKL, was elected president of European contractors’ group AREA at the association’s general assembly in Athens this week.

Marco Buoni, general secretary of Italy’s Associazione Tecnici del Freddo, steps down after four years in the role, taking the position of former president with an international affairs mandate.

Grzegorz Michalski of KFCh, Poland becomes the new vice president and joining the board are Espen Rønning of Norwegian association VKE and Stepan Stojanov of CHKT, Czechia. Thanos Biris of Hellas Union, Greece, maintains his position on the board, along with Seamus Kerr, president of the Institute of Refrigeration Ireland as AREA treasurer, and Claire Grossmann as secretary general.

Established in 1989, AREA represents 25 national associations from 22 countries representing 13,000 companies employing 110,000 people and with an annual turnover approaching €23bn.

Latest News

24th October 2026

House of Lords event marks HVACR Women Week

UK: As the industry prepares to celebrate the inaugural Global HVACR Women Week, the sector came together on Thursday to mark the launch and discuss the sector’s successes.
24th October 2026

Clivet rooftops using R454C

ITALY: Clivet has introduced a new generation of rooftop air-conditioning units using the lower GWP A2L refrigerant R454C.
23rd October 2026

Court installation judges R290 chillers

UK: Panasonic has supplied six 80kW ECOi-W Aqua-G Blue R290 chillers as part of a major cooling infrastructure upgrade at Leeds Magistrates Court.
23rd October 2026

Solid refrigerant firm receives $8.5m funding

USA: Pascal, a developer of barocaloric solid refrigerant technology, has raised additional funding of $8.5m to support the technology’s initial deployments with a multinational beverage manufacturer.
23rd October 2026

Westfalen opens R290 plant

GERMANY: Industrial gases manufacturer and retailer the Westfalen Group has opened a new plant to produce high-purity refrigerant R290 at its site in Münster-Gelmer.
22nd October 2026

ABB strikes transverse flux motor deal

USA: ABB has extended its relationship with Electric Torque Machines (ETM), which began in 2025, to develop and commercialise motors based on ETM’s patented transverse flux motor technology.