Wood is the oldest type of biomass used as a source of renewable energy. For thousands of years people have been heating their dwellings and cooked food by burning wood at campsites, in fireplaces or stoves. Wood is a renewable resource – trees can be replaced on the timescale of human lives, and often much quicker. However, contrary to the wide-spread belief, wood is not necessarily a carbon-neutral resource and can cause substantial pollution and health damage, when burnt incorrectly. One old inefficient wood stove produces the same amount of fine particulate matter as five old diesel buses.
Since the oil crisis, a lot of development has taken place in wood-based heating technology: more efficient and less polluting wood stoves and especially pellet stoves showed up on the market. Given their low emissions and high efficiency, pellet stoves gained popularity in the last decade both in EU and US, but the wide-spread adoption is still lagging due to high prices and lack of innovation.
At this purpose, Vesta Srl is developing the Laelia Due project, a highly efficient and environmental-friendly heating stove IoT enabled and perfectly integrated within the IoT ecosystem, which will enable smart assistance, remote control and an efficient maintenance, with the ambition to reach both the 20% of the Italian market share and the 15% of the EU market share by 2025.
The commercialization of Laelia Due, will be boosted by engaging users via a dedicated web and mobile (smartphone app) e-commerce channel, allowing them to configure and visualize the stove in their interior using augmented reality. After choosing the aesthetic for the stove fitting their own room, the users will be able to buy it directly, without going through intermediaries allowing us to be able to lower the price by ±20% compared to our competitors. Around this sales platform, we would create a dissemination activity, to inform the prospect customers about the correct heating approaches and air pollution issues, using various web and social instruments (like blogs, forums and social media), to generate an on-line marketing activity. In this Phase 1 project we have validated this approach, collecting additional data and devising a detailed go-to-market strategy.
Our ambition is to achieve a level at which the use of pellet stoves will be recognised as the most sustainable way to heat homes, to reduce air pollution that stems from usage of inefficient old wood stoves and to generate both direct (design, development and manufacturing) and indirect (stove maintenance, pellet production and transport) jobs.
In this Phase 1 project, we have validated the business potential together with the commercial and economic feasibility of Laelia Due stoves, and in particular the competitive advantage of the web and mobile direct sales channel, the additional value-added smart services and related business partners to implement them and the value proposition, with 50+ prospects in the target market. In particular, we have:
1. investigated barriers and risks of implementation of the direct-only channel;
2. run customer validations to ensure the willingness-to-buy with the proposed approach;
3. accurately determined the possible cost reductions reachable with large scale manufacturing;
4. prepared partnerships for delivery in our targeted geographical segments;
5. prepared partnerships for deployment of additional IoT-enabled smart value-added services.
The aforementioned achievements pave the way for further developments in the Phase 2 project, where we will Implement the validated disruptive direct channel, establish benefitting partnerships, implement a large-scale trial of Laelia Due stoves in EU, incrementally improve the stove efficiency and enabled services while lowering its manufacturing costs and prepare for the market launch.
Finally, in the Phase 3 project, we will enhance company growth by commercializing the stove in 5+ key geographical markets in EU and scale the production to reach the company market share objectives in Italy and EU.
The successful commercialisation of Laelia Due will contribute to address 3 major challenges for EU. Specifically, it will reduce dependency on energy imports, contribute to decrease air pollution and offer a valid opportunity to create new jobs.
