In the past 6 months BSRIA has been monitoring the impact of COVID-19 on the HVAC&R sector, and released updated market trends in September 2020. Based on this latest insight, BSRIA’s market experts recently delivered insightful presentations about the current and future trend on the global HVAC&R industry.
Anette Holley (Business Manager of BSRIA Worldwide Market Intelligence) opened the webinar, introducing the economic context and setting the scene for the HVAC&R information presented later.
Socrates Christidis (Research Manager, Heating & Renewables), presented the current impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the heating technologies sector. According to BSRIA’s latest findings, sales of boilers suffered during the pandemic; domestic boilers more than commercial ones, but the European heat pump market has continued to grow. While it may soon be impossible to install gas boilers in new build in some countries, large numbers of low-efficiency boilers installed in older buildings still point to a healthy replacement market. Policies, energy efficiency, building regulations and government subsidies support heat pumps sales in Europe; in China the pace of transition from coal to gas or electricity has slowed down, while in North America some quite radical state policies are coming from California on the electrification of heating, which may start to alter the landscape of heating.
Saziye Dickson (Research Manager, ACV & R), spoke about the latest trends in air conditioning, Indoor Air Quality (IAQ), retail refrigeration, touching on findings from the latest BSRIA Global Compressor study. The AC market in Americas is expected to contract by 4% in value terms in 2020 after 5 years of consecutive growth. Upcoming US presidential election results will play a significant role in the recovery of the markets. In Asia Pacific, the contracting AC sector has been deepened by the pandemic, especially a large fall in tourism. BSRIA forecasts the market to contract by 8% in value terms in 2020. In the Middle East/India/Africa the uncontrolled COVID-19 pandemic delays the market recovery and there is a push to improve IAQ and ventilation in existing buildings. The trend of working from home in Europe had a positive impact on split sales, government incentives and legislation created demand, just like the push to improve IAQ and ventilation in existing buildings is hot on the agenda to entice people back to the offices.
Lone Hansen (Research Manager, IT Cabling, BACS & Associated Technologies) spoke about the fact that certain trends have been accelerated by COVID-19 as in several sectors working from home became the norm: online platforms, which are increasingly used to communicate and collaborate with clients and colleagues; increasing focus on cyber security, a higher level of mobility — working from home is here to stay; an increase in remote monitoring, virtual commissioning and testing. As a result, building operators are changing attitudes from “wait till it breaks” to a more pro-active approach, increasing remote monitoring and investing in refurbishment projects to improve IAQ and ventilation, as well as observe the new COVID-19 related government Health & Safety guidelines.