Mitsubishi Electric announced on 9 February 2023 that it has expanded its renewable heating range with two new commercial products, and called on the construction industry to work together on the transition to low carbon heating1. The company describes the resulting line-up as what it believes is the widest range of commercial and residential heat pumps on the market1.
The additions are the MEHP-iS-G07 heat pump chiller, built at the company's Italian factory, and the Ecodan CAHV-R air source heat pump, a scalable unit that updates the CAHV-P model and uses R454C refrigerant with a global warming potential of 1481. These join the Ecodan Ultra Quiet residential air source range and the Ecodan Hydrodan water-to-water heat pump, launched last year, which works with fifth generation low temperature heat networks1. Mitsubishi Electric says further additions to the domestic Ecodan line-up are promised later in the year, and that it continues to develop the range with its Scottish manufacturing plant to match the needs of British homes1.
The company frames the launch around installation numbers. It states that meeting the government's target of 600,000 heat pump installations a year by 2028 would require a tenfold increase in installations over the next five years, and that heating accounts for almost a third of all UK carbon emissions1.
"We can now provide a heat pump for anything from a small, modern home right up to a 1000+kW heat pump chiller that will service a school, a leisure centre, a hospital, or an entire university campus"
The company also says it has quadrupled the amount of training available for plumbers and heating engineers, and that it is one of the first manufacturers to include embodied carbon data for its products1. No prices, efficiency figures for the new units, or UK availability dates beyond the launch itself are given in the announcement1.
Why it matters for households
The two new products are commercial units, so they do not change what is on offer for a single home. The relevance for households is in the direction of travel: a manufacturer expanding its range and its installer training is part of the supply chain that determines how straightforward it is to specify and service a heat pump in a UK property. Mitsubishi Electric's Ecodan line is one of the established options in the domestic market, and the company says more domestic models are coming later in the year1. Households weighing a heat pump against other low carbon options, or comparing manufacturers, can look at how the Ecodan range compares with biomass boilers and with rival air source ranges. The claim that heating is responsible for almost a third of UK carbon emissions is the context in which domestic heating choices sit1.
What happens next
Mitsubishi Electric has promised further additions to the domestic Ecodan line-up later in the year, without giving a date or naming the products1. No launch dates for the MEHP-iS-G07 or the Ecodan CAHV-R in the UK have been reported1.