Following on from our very successful NIBE training event at PICAC in Melbourne in May this year, we generated enough interest and excitement within NIBE that they featured the event in their regular bi-annual publication – Expert News:
Northern Sweden or southern Europe. NIBE’s heat pumps are accustomed to long trips before being bolted down in their new homes. But sometimes, they are transported as far as 15,527 kilometers to Sydney, Australia. Which is where NIBE’s Sören Hasselbalch recently went to visit Geoexchange, NIBE’s distributor in the land “down under”.
” We have cooperated with GeoExchange for about four years and they are a well- established actor in geothermal heating in Australia. Their CEO is the chairman of the Australian Heat Pump Association and represents the interests of geothermal heat and heat pumps in this enormous land,” says Sören Hasselbalch, whose everyday job is to offer technical support at NIBE After Sales.
Sören is used to travelling as he is responsible for providing technical support of NIBE’s products to installers in Russia, the Nordics, northern Europe, the Baltic states, Italy, Greece and Australia. In May of 2018, he traveled to Australia to train and learn from distributor GeoExchange.
Underfloor heating and hanging out at the pool Australia has somewhat different heating needs than Sweden. Heating is primarily needed for tap water and smaller water- borne systems. Air heating is generally done through the ventilation system using gas or electricity. Cooling is more often in focus for chillers and is generally separate from the heating system. So, when it comes to heat pumps, it is desirable that they man- age to generate cooling and to heat floors, water and pools.
” In my experience, Australia is far behind Sweden when it comes to using energy efficient heat pumps to increase comfort and to save money. But GeoExchange is propelling development and has to date, installed approximately 50 of NIBE’s air/water pumps in houses that use them for both heating and cooling. It is pretty even between NIBE F2120 and F2040 when it comes to sales,” says Sören.
Air/water is the thing NIBE’s most long-distance distributor GeoExchange has attended a number of training sessions at NIBE Energy Systems in Markaryd and via Skype. Now that we have been collaborating for a few years, the plan is to assemble a greater number of heat pumps boasting NIBE’s proud name in Australia. But according to Sören most of them will be air/water systems, and he describes why below.
” For many years GeoExchange has sold American WaterFurnace (owned by NIBE) ground-source heat pumps. They can focus on ground-source heating and NIBE will deal with air/water. Our fantastic NIBE F2120 will surely make the Australians fall in love with our ability to extract energy from the air,” concludes Sören, who only had one little complaint about his visit to the distributor.
” It’s typical that my first trip to Australia would have to be during their winter and that my family and friends at home were boasting 25-degree weather,” says Sören with a chuckle.
Click on the link / image below to read about how they see the heat pump market in the land down under.
Nibe and GeoExchange Australia
