A new air-to-water (ATW) heat pump production base of Midea, including production lines, heat pump R&D center and supporting facilities , starts construction in Italy officially. The base is located in the Clivet factory in Feltre of Italy, as Clivet is a high-end commercial air-conditioning brand under Midea Building Technology.
The base has received a 60 million euros investment, and its forecast annual ATW heat pump capacity will reach 300,000 units when the facility to be put into operation in the second quarter of 2024.
"With the concept of 'local for local, western for western', Midea is committed to building Clivet brand into a mainstream brand in the pan-European HVAC industry," Henry Cheng, general manager of Midea Building Technology Overseas Marketing.
The company's production and operating area in Feltre exceeds 50,000 square meters and the total number of employees exceeds 700. It has 35 sales offices, 260 retailer channels and 160 service outlets in Italy with branches in the UK, Germany, France, Southeast Europe, the United Arab Emirates and India.
After completion, the key materials of the ATW heat pump will be sourced from Europe, and the delivery time of the heat pump products will be cut from the original five months to one month, which will further improve the production capacity and delivery efficiency of the overall customized heat pump solutions in Europe, solving the safety problems of the global heat pump supply chain, and comprehensively enhancing the influence and competition of Media Building Technology in Europe.
Amid the background of carbon neutrality, the ATW heat pump, as a renewable energy utilization device, is one of the most efficient ways of electric heating. Compared with coal-fired boilers, heat pumps can reduce carbon emissions by 60-80 percent. Under the background of rising fossil energy prices and the gradual implementation of the EU's "RepowerEU" plan, Europe has begun to gradually replace traditional fossil fuel heating with heat pump heating.
At present, heat pump products are also becoming an important growth pole of Midea Group. Industry data shows that Midea's overall heat pump export has increased by 215 percent in the first seven months of 2022, with the exports ranking in the forefront of China's heat pump industry.