Masthead - Climate Control Journal

Wilo Middle East acquires PumpsPro

DUBAI, UAE, 17 February 2021: Wilo Middle East (WME), manufacturer of pumps and systems, acquired PumpsPro, a pump solution service provider under Direct Trade House International LLC (DTHI). Making the announcement through a Press release, it said the acquisition entails the creation of a new business unit, which will maintain the name, PumpsPro but will be managed and operated as a Wilo company.

According to WME, the signing of the agreement took place at its office in Jebel Ali Free Zone (JAFZA) in the presence of Jens Dallendoerfer, Senior Vice President – Sales Region Emerging Markets, Wilo Group; Yasser Nagi, Managing Director, Wilo Middle East & Group Sales Director MENA Region and Bijan Sheibani, Chairman, Direct Trade House International LLC.

Under the terms of the agreement, WME said it will be acquiring PumpsPro, including all its assets, highly skilled service workforce, brand and extensive portfolio of customers. The move is expected to further reinforce WME’s position as a complete solution provider in the UAE and the Middle East region, it added. Nagi said: “We are proud to announce the signing of a strategic acquisition agreement with PumpsPro – a move that is expected to make Wilo a leading solutions provider in the UAE and the rest of the region. It’s a win-win agreement that falls in line with Dubai’s Demand Side Management Strategy 2030 and gives us the opportunity to support the retrofit program of 30,000 buildings by 2030, which aims to make the emirate one of the most sustainable cities in the world.”

Bijan Sheibani and Yasser Nagi signing the agreement

According to WME, PumpsPro has been working with it as service partner for its overhauling and repairing business since 2018. The signing of the new agreement, it said, is expected to reinforce Wilo’s capabilities, equipping the company to bring repairing and overhauling activities in-house, especially catering to the large number of building service, water management and industrial customers that require the right servicing that leads to strong reliability and asset uptime. WME said its offshore customers in the region will also benefit from the acquisition, where demand for servicing offshore pumps has seen a big uptake, providing oil and gas customers the just-in-time reliable servicing they require.

Peter Glauner, Senior Vice President – Group Service, Wilo Group, said: “This agreement boosts Wilo Middle East’s competitive advantage over its competitors. We are confident to seeing more benefits, as business synergies are further integrated. Over the years, we have reinforced our position as a global leading premium manufacturer of innovative pumps and pumping systems in the field of building services, water management and industry. We remain steadfast in our efforts to set new standards as a leader of innovation in terms of system efficiency and maximum energy savings.”

According to WME, PumpsPro’s relationship with Wilo Middle East dates back to 2018. WME said PumpsPro has earned a reputation of being a complete solution provider, with its employees cited for their high professionalism and expertise. Sectors that will benefit from the newly signed agreement include facilities management, hotels, leisure destinations, hospitals, schools, water parks, offshore, water management and industry, WME added.

Dallendoerfer said: “We are very confident that this acquisition deal between Wilo Middle East and PumpsPro will help consolidate our efforts to position ourselves as a top candidate in terms of providing complete turnkey value-added solutions to our retrofit customers, who are looking for a one-stop shop capable of providing services in supply, installation, start-up, testing/commissioning and other value-added requirements.”

ASHRAE Epidemic Task Force releases updated Building Readiness Guide

ATLANTA, Georgia, 02 February 2021: With the performance of many HVAC systems in buildings still being evaluated, the ASHRAE Epidemic Task Force has updated its reopening guidance for HVAC systems to help mitigate the transmission of SARS-CoV-2, ASHRAE said through a Press release.

“The Building Readiness Guide includes additional information and clarifications to assist designers and commissioning providers in performing pre- or post-occupancy flush calculations to reduce the time and energy to clear spaces of contaminants between occupancy periods,” said Wade Conlan, Lead, ASHRAE Epidemic Task Force Building Readiness team. “New information includes the theory behind the use of equivalent outdoor air supply, method for calculating the performance of filters and air cleaners in series, and filter droplet nuclei efficiency that help evaluate the systems’ ability to flush the building.”

According to ASHRAE, major updates to the building readiness guidance include the following:

  • Pre- or post-flushing strategy methodology: The strategy has been updated to include the use of filter droplet nuclei efficiency, which is the overall efficiency of filter, based on viable virus particle sizes in the air, to assist in determining the impact of the filter on the recirculated air on the equivalent outdoor air. This allows the filter efficiency as a function of particle size, using ASHRAE Standard 52.2 test results, to be estimated based on the expected size distribution of virus-containing particles in the air. This calculation is currently based on Influenza A data and will be updated as peer-reviewed research becomes available for the distribution of particle sizes that contain a viable SARS-CoV-2 virus. Additionally, a chart has been added to help determine the time to achieve 90%, 95% or 99% contaminant reduction, if the equivalent outdoor air changes per hour is known.
  • Flushing time calculator: There is now a link to a view-only Google Sheet that can be downloaded for use, to help determine the available equivalent outdoor air changes and time to perform the flush. This sheet is based on a typical mixed AHU with filters, cooling coil, with potential for in-AHU air cleaner (UVC is noted in the example), and in-room air cleaning devices. Provided efficiencies of MERV-rated filters are based on the performance of over 200 actual filters from MERV 4 through 16, but the tool also allows users to enter custom characteristics for specific filters.
  • The sheet also calculates the filter droplet nuclei efficiency, based on the cited research but allows a user to adjust the anticipated distribution of virus, as desired. It also allows specification of the zone (room) air distribution effectiveness from ASHRAE Standard 62.1 to account for the impact of the HVAC system air delivery method on the degree of mixing. Default calculations assume perfect mixing. Finally, the tool allows for the target air changes to be adjusted if an owner wants to achieve a different per cent removal in lieu of the recommended 95%. 
  • Heating season guidance: The guide now includes data to consider for heating of outdoor air and the potential impact on pre-heat coils in systems.
  • Adjustments to align with Core Recommendations: The Core Recommendations were released in January 2021, and this guidance document needed to be updated to ensure that the information provided aligned with the intent of those recommendations. This included minimum outdoor air supply and filter efficiency requirements and their role in an equivalent outdoor air supply-based risk mitigation strategy.

According to ASHRAE, the guidance still addresses the tactical commissioning and systems analysis needed to develop a Building Readiness Plan, increased filtration, air cleaning strategies, domestic and plumbing water systems, and overall improvements to a system’s ability to mitigate virus transmission.

Energy targets reshaping the built-environment

Italy currently houses 12.2 million residential buildings, featuring 31 million homes, 72% of which was built before 1980, at a time when there was no legislation on the energy saving of buildings. This is the figure that Andrea Guderzo, General Manager, Clivet Mideast FZCO, presents in an effort to highlight the importance the retrofit segment holds in the country’s energy-efficiency directives. He says: “The 2018/844 / EU Directive, published on June 19, 2018, requires European countries to develop a long-term strategy to support the renovation of residential and non-residential buildings, both public and private in order to obtain decarbonised and energy-efficient buildings by 2050, and to facilitate the transformation of existing buildings into almost-zero-energy buildings.”

This, Guderzo stresses, offers a great opportunity for the HVAC market, in view of the technological innovations in the fields of heating, cooling, air renewal and purification and domestic hot water production and the very compact units, which can contribute towards achieving high levels of global efficiency. “In Italy, modern construction technologies have brought great improvements in the insulation of building envelopes and a substantial reduction in the thermal requirements of buildings,” he says. Almost 70% of the energy needs of a building is used to regulate the indoor climate. The challenges real estate is facing are: reducing consumption to zero by working on the envelope, finding low-impact energy sources, ensuring comfort and guaranteeing economic sustainability of design choices. In this scenario, the HVACR industry has a great responsibility and must give its contribution to increase global efficiency and comfort of the buildings.”

Beyond compliance with public sector regulations to reduce consumption, Guderzo stresses that improving the efficiency and sustainability of existing buildings has an implication in terms of market value and absorbability of the property, which should not be underestimated. “A recent survey carried out by ReBuild, in collaboration with CBRE and GBCI Europe, showed how energy-efficient buildings with a LEED certification have a greater value on the real estate market,” he says. “In particular, the market recognises the Gold certification, with a premium of 7.4%, and Platinum, with a premium above 11%. The occupancy rate on the certified properties, within six months after the certification, reach about 80%, and the vacancy ratio, after two and a half years, is lower than seven per cent.”

Guderzo says the growing demand for comfort, while ensuring energy saving, has been driving design and production of companies. “Italian producers, like Clivet, are facing this challenge by focusing on research and innovation, in order to create products that guarantee maximum comfort by reducing the energy consumption and the environmental impact of comfort solutions,” he says. “This strategy is winning, as demonstrated, the last 2018 trimestral evaluations announced by Assoclima, the Italian Association of HVRAC producers, with a growth in Italy’s air conditioning sector.”

Guderzo says large part of the growth in the sector is represented by the heat pump technology, adding that inverter technology continues to be a popular choice in the residential sector and has evolved to address real-time demands of the plant, which increases the energy efficiency of the overall system.

Banner - CCGD
Banner - RBG
Copyright © 2024 - CPI Industry, Dubai - UAE. All rights reserved.