Dusseldorf Thermondo founder Philipp Pausder is not lacking in self-confidence. “We are Germany’s best chance of six million climate-neutral homes by 2030,” says the head of the heating platform on the market entry into the heat pump business. Thermondo now also offers the installation of electrically powered heaters.
So far, the young company, founded in 2013, has focused on oil and gas boilers in its range of heating replacements. However, economics minister Robert Habeck (Greens) wants six million heat pumps to be installed in Germany by 2030. According to the Federal Association of the German Heating Industry, in 2020 it was just over a million.
Thermondo wants to get involved with a special offer in the growing market segment: heat pumps for rent. Customers pay at least 159 euros per month for this. “Not every homeowner has 25,000 euros in cash to buy a heat pump,” says Pausder. “With a rental model, the target group becomes larger.”
The Thermondo founder formulates this as a challenge to the established providers: “Our ambitious goal for 2023: We install almost 10,000 heat pumps.” In the growth market, they want to be the clear market leader and also grow by 50 to 70 percent per year. Sales growth of 53 percent was already achieved last year.
Top jobs of the day
Find the best jobs now and
be notified by email.
With this goal, however, Thermondo is still a long way from market leadership. According to the Federal Association of the German Heating Industry, a total of 154,000 heat pumps were installed in Germany last year.
“Asians could flood the market with cheap heat pumps”
The manufacturer Viessmann alone is likely to have produced a large part of the devices recently installed in Germany, according to the industry. The company announced a few weeks ago that it would invest one billion euros in air conditioning solutions and heat pumps. With the money, Viessmann is converting its production capacities from gas and oil heating systems to heat pumps, which require significantly more production space.
Vaillant and Stiebel Eltron are also producing many times the number of units that Thermondo wants to install by 2023, as insiders say.
However, the industry is concerned about corporations from Asia that are pushing into the German market with heat pumps – including Thermondo partner LG Electronics. The Korean conglomerate has not yet appeared as one of the relevant players in Germany, says an industry member.
And elsewhere it is said from industry circles that Asian competitors could practically flood the market with cheap heat pumps. “Then tens of thousands of jobs would be at stake in Germany, and the well-intentioned German climate policy would have done the German heating industry a disservice,” explains an insider.
According to their own statements, German companies are pioneers in Europe when it comes to oil and gas heating systems. In the heat pump business, on the other hand, there is much more competition. Asian corporations, such as Mitsubishi Electric or Daikin, who have previously sold air conditioning systems on a large scale, are often also pushing into this market segment.
“LG Electronics is one of the largest compressor and battery manufacturers in the world”
The threat of competitive pressure brings back memories of cheap solar modules from China. The market for German photovoltaic systems collapsed massively for almost six years in 2012. Competition with Chinese suppliers drove many manufacturers into bankruptcy.
Not all heat pumps are the same. The devices differ, among other things, in the refrigerants that are used in them. Certain substances can also evaporate at low temperatures, thereby extracting heat from the outside air. When the gaseous refrigerant is then compressed again in the heat pump with a compressor and thus liquefied again, it transfers its heat to the heating circuit.
The refrigerants have different “Global Warming Potentials” (GWP), i.e. a different greenhouse effect if they get into the environment. For example, LG Electronics wants to use the refrigerant R32, which has a GWP of 675, in its heat pumps for Thermondo. Founder Philipp Pausder says: “R32 is much easier to handle than propane.”
However, the natural refrigerant propane (also known as R290) only has a GWP value of 3. It is used in the newer heat pumps from Viessmann, for example.
>> Read here: Rising heating costs: is a heat pump worth it now?
Pausder is nevertheless convinced that he has found a valuable partner: “LG Electronics is one of the largest compressor and battery manufacturers in the world.” The manufacturer’s heat pump can heat interiors even at outside temperatures of minus 15 degrees without using a heating element. Very cold winter days usually push heat pumps to their limits.
Thermondo as a bridge between a strong heat pump manufacturer and German trades
The Thermondo founder is also confident that LG Electronics can deliver the agreed quantities of heat pumps despite current global supply chain problems and material shortages.
For LG Electronics, Thermondo offers access to the German market that many Asian heat pump manufacturers hardly have. In contrast to the local heating engineers, they have not trained craftsmen for decades and thus built up partnerships with companies that then prefer to install their products.
Thermondo can serve as a bridge between a strong manufacturer and German crafts. This is becoming more and more important in view of the increasing shortage of skilled workers in this country. “We have 250 to 300 craftsman applications per month and hire up to 25 craftsmen a month,” says Pausder.
However, Thermondo is also struggling to fill all of its vacancies. According to Pausder, the company currently employs 670 people, but would like to have 800.
More: Gas heating, heat pump or wood pellets? This is the best way for consumers to heat in the future