Daikin Europe N.V. has announced it will invest 300 million euro to establish a new factory in Łódź, Poland, which will be Daikin’s first production base in the country. The new factory will manufacture residential heat pump units and start operations in July 2024, in addition to the existing European production bases in Belgium, the Czech Republic and Germany. This investments come on top of the 840 million euro set out in Daikin Europe’s strategic management plan FUSION 25, announced last year, and new investments in existing factories. This brings Daikin Europe’s total investment amount to over 1.2 billion euro by 2025.
Daikin considers Europe to be a top priority region for expanding its heat pump heating business in FUSION 25. Toshitaka Tsubouchi, President of Daikin Europe says, ‘As the leading company in the European market for heat pump heating, Daikin takes up the challenge to facilitate the societal shift from fossil fuel boilers to heat pumps. To this end, we have been strengthening our product development and service capabilities, and now decided to establish a new factory in Poland. This factory will have the largest capacity in the Daikin Europe Group in terms of heat pump heating output. With this investment we aim to achieve the No.1 market share in each of the major countries.’
Hiromitsu Iwasaki, Vice President of Daikin Europe says, ‘We are expanding our production capacity through capital investments and increased employment in our existing heat pump factories in Europe. The decision to establish this entirely new factory in Poland, shows Daikin is responding firmly to the accelerating demand in Europe. Poland is a country with a large number of skilled workers and the new factory will employ 1,000 people by 2025. Our efforts will enable us to produce 4 times the current volume by 2025, and create a production system with a stable supply to a rapidly growing market. With this new factory, we continue our proximity strategy, meaning that all heating products sold in Europe are also manufactured in Europe.”
Over the past decade, the European market for heat pump heating has grown at a strong pace, expanding to over 1 million units sold per year in 2021. Patrick Crombez, General Manager Daikin Europe Heating and Renewables says, ‘With the EU Green Deal, European leaders defined a clear path for Europe to become a climate neutral continent by 2050. The subsequent Fit for 55 package, as well as the most recent REPowerEU plan, increase the speed of action to reduce emissions from and dependency on fossil fuels in Europe. Heat pumps play a crucial role in achieving these ambitions, so we expect a wide heat pump adoption in the coming years. By 2025, at least 3 million heat pump heating units are expected to be installed each year, representing an annual growth rate of around 30%. Obviously with Daikin we aim to re-affirm our leadership by investing for the future.’
