#	Pagina
attuale pagina	/open-h2020/projects/197416/results.html

Report

Teaser, summary, work performed and final results

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - ReHeat (Heat Recovery System for Professional Laundry Equipment)

Teaser

Summary

TEKFRIGO was founded in 1997 by Alessandro Aldini as one of the leading Italian refrigeration, condensing units and cooling equipment.
Professional laundry equipment is energy intensive: 66 billion kWh/year or 78% of all laundry electricity consumption. Many inefficient products continue to be placed on the market, despite lower life cycle cost for products with higher efficiencies. In the last years we have been working to develop a novel green heat recovery system for professional laundry systems.
(ReHeat) by applying the heat pump water condensed dryer principle. ReHeat consists in a professional tumble dryer with a Laundry Heat Recovery unit (LHR), a new energy saving system based on a refrigeration circuit, which will reduce the overall energy consumption up to 63%.
This Feasibility Study is the result of ReHeat Phase 1 funded by H2020 SME Instrument which main objectives were to deepen the preliminary technical, commercial and financial conclusions obtained during the previous stage and to perform a Freedom-to-Operate analysis.
After confirming the overall viability of the project, together with no incompatibilities with any of the existing patents, our intention is to continue the process towards a ReHeat Phase 2 of the H2020 SME Instrument as we believe this is the most adequate source of funding to carry on with our innovation business plan.

Work performed

The work under this Feasibility Study has been divided in several tasks to analyse the idea at 4 levels: Technical feasibility and project Execution Plan, Reheat commercial potential, financial viability and the preparation of the Business Plan. Our final objective is to create a ReHeat prototype of 60-kg laundry capacity. During this study we have estimated the human, material and funding requirements, foreseen a project duration of 18 months and developed a business plan. We have organized the work steps under 5 technical work packages, adding another two for Dissemination & commercial tasks and Management. Also, we have performed a FTO analysis showing no conflicts with any existing patent, concluding that we are free to operate and the project is technically viable.
Regarding ReHeat commercial potential, we have studied deeply the market, our competitors and identified our targeted segments. With this information we could define the market strategy basing our activities in Italy, Spain, France, Germany and UK, making the project commercially feasible.
Financially, basing in the market study and the technical requirements, we could estimate ReHeat future projections including its cost structure, revenues, market penetrations and cash flows for the first 5 years. Considering these projections and the funding requirements, we could infer a return of investment of 3 years, making the project financially viable.
Finally, in order to carry out the technical activities and to boost the commercial tasks, we will associate with Nordestwash, an Italian company with whom we have collaborated in the past and accounts over 40 years in the laundry business.

Final results

The world market volume of professional tumble dryers is around 85,000 units/year and the European one around 39,200 units/year with an expected market value of 220Mâ‚¬ in 2014 growing at an average rate of 5%. ReHeat will be the only product in the Market that will comply with the EU Ecodesign Directive 2009/125/E that regulates the performance criteria of non-household laundry equipment, aiming energy reductions of 35% in washing machines and 68% in dryers. The annual energy consumption related to these equipments is approximately 0.3% of the total gross energy consumption of the EU-27, equivalent to 10.7 Mt CO2 per year. If no specific measures are taken, it is expected to increase 17% by 2030.
ReHeat answers to a clear and urgent need to improve the energy efficiency of professional laundry equipment and reduce operative costs. This commercial advantage will give us the opportunity to grow strongly in the laundry business, expanding to new markets and gaining new customers.