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Energy savings in residential buildings using a modular platform to control an all-in-one unit for water heating, climate control, and ventilation

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SmartCOMBI (Energy savings in residential buildings using a modular platform to control an all-in-one unit for water heating, climate control, and ventilation)

Reporting period: 2016-03-01 to 2016-08-31

The project is an analyse of the commercial potential and implications when introducing a novel modular platform to control an all-in-one unit for water heating, climate control, and ventilation. High indoor air quality, combined with a high energy efficiency in new build buildings is issues that have environmental impact and can reduce the cost on household heating.
The project examines the technical as well as the social barriers in the value chain toward the end-users – and has identified some essential needs and characteristics for a modular product to succeed in the market.

The objective with the project is:

• To identify the market potential and entries.
• To identify the barriers to the market to overcome in a phase 2.
• To evaluate the company resources and capabilities to fulfil a successful phase 2.
• To examine the freedom to operate with respect to IPR.
• To make a business plan.
• To make a phase 2 implementation plan.
The project had several tasks, involving Technical feasibility assessment, Market Analysis, Business analysis, Business plan, Reinforce of the IPR position and Plan the innovation project.
Surveys among manufactures has been performed, end-user preferences has been examined and market data has been exploited. The findings are three different market entries, depending on the manufactures resources and capabilities and that the majority of end-users have the preference for products with IoT capability and an easy to adapt user interface without too may information.
To broaden the household market take-up, the platform must however be re-engineered in some aspects to reduce size and costs while at least maintaining the high performance so far observed in our initial pilot tests.
To meet the manufactures needs, the easiness of adapting a new solution and to test and verify the performance is essential, as fast to market and spared implementation costs are critical parameters when selecting a solution provider and ‘next years’ technology.
The conclusion is, that undergoing a Phase 2, the project will have huge impact on the existing business of the company, as there is a huge market potential if the platform aims the small and medium sized manufactures within the market, and a very positive environmental impact and cost-saving for the end-users.
The sphere around SmartCOMBI