BSEE AIR CONDITIONING


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TARGETING THE KEY TO SUCCESS Finding those hot spots in the aircon market


Since the Crash in 2008, there have been various sightings of the green shoots of recovery, but how true is that for the air conditioning market, asks Stuart Eagleton, Fujitsu National Account Manager.


O verall, the air


conditioning market is down year-on-year and the next few years could be a bit of a struggle. There were a number of


reasons for this less than sparkling performance, one of which was a good old-fashioned cool summer. No matter how much we try to get the message across that air conditioning is the most efficient form of heating, a single hot or cold summer can still make a real difference.


However, it is far from an even spread and there are a number of hotspots, so sales success could depend on targeting the right areas.


In the commercial market, the hot spots are the hotel, leisure and sports sectors, which are also performing well in the economy as a whole.


Geographically, London is, and is likely to remain for the foreseeable future, the nation’s construction powerhouse, with a 44% share of all construction in 2015. What makes it a particularly good target for air conditioning is that 67% of all hotel, leisure and sport new build projects last year were in London. We at Fujitsu have already had a good deal of success by targeting these areas.


However, this does not mean there will be no construction elsewhere. There are a number of public sector and public/private partnerships that are likely to generate and trigger large amounts of construction in the North and Midlands. In particular, there is the massive HS2 rail project and Government’s promised extra funding for the creation of a “Northern Powerhouse”, based on Manchester and Leeds.


Lucrative market


Offices, a traditionally lucrative market for air conditioning over the past decades, look set to continue to be a strong area. While new-build starts fell last year, this was made up for by an increase in


refurbishments. A lot of effort has had to be put into bringing older office buildings up to the requirements of modern companies. One of the essential elements of this is, of course, air conditioning.


The market prediction is that while refurbishment is likely to slow down this year, new-build will increase, so the opportunities to sell new systems should remain roughly the same. While it looks like there might be be a slight slowdown, volumes should still be up on 2015.


The retail sector, another stalwart market over the years, was fairly flat last year. Going forward this market could get tougher. You only have to watch the business news in the morning, or just walk up and down the High Street, to see that this


country, as many other, has too much traditional retail space. The trend is heavily towards on-line shopping, which does not require retail outlets, so new-build will inevitably be down, with more retail space being converted to leisure and domestic dwelling use.


However, as with offices, there is always a need to bring older premises up-to date, so refurbishment is likely to remain strong.


New builds


On the domestic side, the housing sector was very positive last year, but it too is likely to level off over the coming couple of years. However, after that, growing housing demand, coupled with new housing land being freed up, will mean a growth in new builds.


Every year that I have been in this industry someone has confidently predicted that this year will be the one when domestic air conditioning really kicks off. While I do not believe this will be the case for houses, the luxury end of the market is continuing to be a strong market, especially for mini-VRFs, such as the Fujitsu J II or J II S, and where is the largest number of high-rise luxury apartment buildings being constructed? You guessed it, London. You only have to take a riverboat down the Thames to see the opportunities on both banks. In general, last year saw a slowdown in 2014’s market recovery for splits and VRFs, mainly due to the slowdown in new build offices, but, once again, the strength of the refurbishment market is helping. Because of the trends discussed above, this year should see big demand for VRF and splits coming from office new build, hotels and some help from domestic. While we expect the sector to decline a little next year, it should start to increase again in 2018. The further you look into the future, the more the market seems to be moving towards VRF.


The dog that didn’t bark, at least so far, is the replacement of old R22 equipment. The belief was that, knowing that R22 was going to be unavailable, many end users would take the opportunity to replace their old R22 units with new, more efficient equipment. This has not been the case. It would appear that most are keeping their money in the bank and waiting for the first breakdown before tackling the issue. The conclusion is that, while the market over the next few years will be challenging for everyone in the air conditioning industry, opportunities do exist if marketing efforts are targeted at the right sectors described above. Of course, it will obviously help if you are based in or near London.


http://www.fujitsu.com/uk/


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While new‐build starts fell last year, this was made up for by an increase in


refurbishments. A lot of effort has had to be put into bringing older office buildings up to the requirements of modern companies. One of the essential elements of this is, of course, air conditioning.


’ 36 BUILDING SERVICES & ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEER APRIL 2016


uThe Grosvenor House luxury apartments in London have been installed with a Fujitsu VRF Condensing Unit, mounted on the flat roof of the seven storey building in Grosvenor Square. The project included the installation of eight floor mounted chassis style fan coils behind wood panels – two in the lounge, two in the kitchen, one in the entrance hall, one in the study and one in each of two bedrooms. Other equipment included a Fujitsu heat recovery VRF inverter drive and eight simple controllers.


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