Made in Germany - Heat Pumps with Growth Potential
So far the heat pump has stood in the shadows of other energy producers. That could change fast,because the device is eco-friendly and highly efficient. More and more households have turned to the new technology. The sector's growth rates are enormous. One company taking advantage is Lower Saxony-based Stiebel Eltron.Just in Germany,over 60 thousand heat pumps were sold last year - up a third on the 2007. Heat pumps function even at temperatures of -20 degrees celsius. Our reporter Sascha Quaiser visited the heating specialists at Stiebel Eltron,which reports sales exceeding €400 million annually - more than half abroad. The company employs 3,000 people worldwide. Last year because it couldn't meet demand for heat pumps,so it opened a new production facility in May. Now Stiebel Eltron can produce 60,000 units annually. The jobs are saved.
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TechTranscript
00:00This house in Brandenburg just outside Berlin is expected to be finished in
00:11four months. Today Susanne Pradel and her architect are meeting with the heating
00:17installers. One thing the owner knew she wanted right from the beginning was a
00:23heat pump. She made a deliberate decision against conventional gas or oil heating.
00:31We're concerned about the future. We were always interested in energy conscious
00:41construction anyway so we wanted to put it to work in our own house. We discussed
00:46it with our architect and the technician and we felt we were all well advised.
00:49Non-renewable resources will run out someday. We're very enthusiastic about
00:55this and hope it will last a long time. For today's heat pumps even heating a
01:04house this size is no problem and the pump will heat not only the air by means
01:11of floor heating but water too. For that pipes have to be sunk 75 meters into the
01:18ground to draw the heat from the earth.
01:26Here is where the pumps are manufactured at Stiebel Eltron in Lower Saxony.
01:37Technical director Kai Schiefelbein says they're building more and more of them and he says with
01:44double-digit growth the heat pump business is starting to be profitable.
01:47However that wasn't always the case. Back in 2004 we were selling heat pumps
01:56primarily to customers who wanted an ecological and technically sophisticated
02:01heating system and didn't care how much it cost. Now the market has grown to the
02:06point where we're gradually attracting even ordinary customers who want comfort
02:10and economy. The company has been developing heat pumps for 30 years.
02:17While the pumps have become cheaper the customer still has to fork out close to
02:238,000 euros for the pumps and another 8,000 for the drilling.
02:27After the initial outlay the pumps are a good investment. In a new building let's
02:34say in five to eight years the heat pump will have paid for itself.
02:36And that's an important selling point. Still the market share of heat pumps in
02:45Germany is just 10% not enough for Schiefelbein.
02:53Production is going at full blast and they need more space. The new plant is next door.
03:00The company is investing madly in expansion. This factory cost 8 million euros.
03:05Tell me the truth if you'd known how bad the economic crisis was going to get
03:11would you have made the same decisions?
03:13Of course. We opened factory number one, the one next door, in 2007 and we needed
03:20it desperately the following year too. We could never have produced the number of
03:24heat pumps we needed in the old facilities. We decided in 2007 to add an extension here.
03:35The local economic and political movers and shakers celebrated the new investment
03:40with what you might call a drum roll.
03:42Celebrations of capital outlay are rare these days. It means there's now room for
03:51100 new positions. But filling them won't be easy. Good engineers are hard to come by.
03:56Back to Susanne Pradel. She'll be paying some 20,000 euros for the heat pump. She
04:04and her architects say it's money well spent and good for the environment too.
04:10Because it's simply the most effective and most modern means of heating a house. It has
04:15no CO2 emissions and doesn't need fossil fuels.
04:22The Pradel family will move into their house in September, just in time to start enjoying
04:27their brand new heat pump.
04:34For more UN videos visit www.un.org