Daikin Europe has kicked off the construction works for its new EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) Development Center building in Ghent, Belgium. This EUR140 million investment will bring together all heat pump heating and refrigeration R&D activity in one central knowledge hub. At the same time, the company announced additional investments for its heat pump production capacity, with another production line in Ostend, Belgium. Combined with the production line that had been inaugurated in April, the company has invested EUR23 million in this plant.
With these two investments, it will make the company one of the very few companies in the industry in Europe to operate this scale of testing capacity in-house. Image credit: Daikin
With these investments in both product development and production capacity, Daikin Europe emphasises its commitment to take the lead in the race towards a carbon-neutral society. With its new building, the EMEA Development Center (EDC) will cement its position as the leader in innovation in heat pump and refrigeration technology for the global group. Earlier this year, this investment won the Foreign Investment of the Year Trophy 2022 by Flanders Investment & Trade, a clear recognition of its importance.
The new site of EDC Ghent will be located at the Technology Park in Zwijnaarde and will consist of 14 office floors and a technical building. Daikin aims to create a unique innovative ecosystem, in close cooperation with the University of Ghent. Part of the building will be reserved for innovative start-ups and spin-offs. The building will be completed by April 2024 and house 400 engineers. For this, Daikin Europe is actively searching for new recruits.
Crucial in this R&D centre will be the technical building, which will house no less than 22 test chambers. These test chambers are essential in Daikin’s product development to simulate operating effectiveness and efficiency under extreme climate conditions. Centrepiece will be the double EMC test chamber, in which devices are tested for electromagnetic interference. Daikin Europe will be one of the very few companies in the industry in Europe to operate this scale of testing capacity in-house.
“EDC Ghent will become a global R&D hub that builds on the company’s own knowledge and experience, but also on the research being done at the University of Ghent and the innovations that come from new spin-offs and start-ups.”, says Toshitaka Tsubouchi, President of Daikin Europe. “This way, EDC Ghent will become a real pressure cooker for technological development and innovation for the next century in the existence of Daikin.”
New investments in Ostend will quadruple production capacity
The demand for heat pumps is rapidly increasing in Europe. This is driven by the many initiatives of Belgian and European authorities to promote this carbon neutral heating technology.
With this new production line, Daikin will more than double its Belgian production capacity for heat pumps by the Summer of 2023. The same plant already announced it had doubled its capacity with the inauguration of another new heat pump production line in April. These two new lines represent a total investment of EUR23 million. Investments like these reaffirm Daikin Europe’s commitment to keep its production facilities close to the market.
“This new investment further highlights our commitment towards Ostend and Flanders as a key production site for Daikin Europe”, comments Wim De Schacht, vice president of Daikin Europe. “All this is part of our ambitious Fusion 25 plan, which we unveiled last year. Daikin Europe is investing EUR840 million by 2025, creating no less than 4 000 new jobs in Europe.”
