During the fiscal year 2023 (closed at the end of March 2024), Daikin Applied Europe continued its growth trajectory. Following the traditional Japanese calendar shared across the Daikin Group, April is a key time to assess past achievements and chart the course for the future.
Despite challenges, the past fiscal year has been marked by notable achievements and significant milestones. The company reached the annual turnover of 442 EUR million, growing +30% with respect to previous year result, and overall, more than doubled in the last five years. Moving into a new chapter, Daikin Applied Europe looks forward with optimism and determination, ready to take advantage of all the opportunities on the horizon.
Daikin Applied Europe: Leading Innovation and Employee Empowerment
Daikin Applied Europe is part of the Japanese multinational Daikin Industries since 2006. Daikin Industries operates with over 96,000 employees in 100 production sites, serving customers in more than 170 countries and generating a global turnover of 28.2 USD billion in the fiscal year 2023. Daikin Applied Europe has been an industrial reality since 1968 in Ariccia, near Rome. With a commitment to innovation, the company designs and manufactures chillers, heat pumps, air handling units and high-tech components such as compressors and inverter drives.
Italy is our hub for the development and production of these technologies, with a strong focus on export markets in all continents. With two additional design and production facilities in Settala (near Milan) and Vicenza, Daikin Applied Europe recognises the importance of its employees, which comprises 972 employees across the three Italian sites, and 90% of newly hired in last 3 years are between 20 and 30 years old. This reflects Daikin's successful integration of young talent into the organization, contributing to the company's year-on-year sales growth.
Key growth factors in fiscal year 2023
In fiscal 2023, Daikin Applied was awarded the Daikin CEO Award for Excellent Innovation in recognition of its significant contribution to business expansion in the data center and renewable heating markets.
The Excellence Award is a testament to the division's outstanding performance in addressing current business challenges by using environmental concerns as an opportunity for business growth in Europe.
This award also reflects the exceptional teamwork and spirit demonstrated by Daikin Applied Europe (DAE), Daikin Applied Germany (DAPG), Daikin Applied UK (DAPUK), Daikin Europe's Applied SBU department (DENV). Together, they worked seamlessly to turn ambitious goals into tangible achievements with remarkable results.
Specifically, the division achieved two major goals: expanding heat pumps and chillers to support Europe's decarbonization efforts and growing demand from data centers with comprehensive capabilities such as efficient systems and emergency services.
Heating decarbonization with Small Inverter Heat Pumps
The transfer of production of the Small Inverter Heat Pump from Belgium to Ariccia in 2021 was a pivotal moment for Daikin Applied Europe (DAE). Following a major redesign by DAE’s R&D department, the Small Inverter Heat Pump was significantly improved and became a more competitive product.
This revitalised range of small inverter heat pumps is an example of Daikin’s continuing commitment to innovation, even in challenging times. These efforts have been supported by a substantial investment of 12 EUR million by Daikin Applied Europe to build a new factory fully dedicated to the development of this units. This strategic decision ensures a constant supply of the range, readily available for fast delivery.
This range contributes to the decarbonisation of heating, which is now more than ever a necessity for buildings, especially in Europe. The range offers the top efficiencies in both cooling and heating modes, as well as extremely limited direct and indirect CO2 emissions. This makes the new Small Inverter Heat Pump an excellent choice for the environment.
Data Center Solutions
Daikin has designed its data center solutions to meet the increasing demand from a sector experiencing huge growth due to the digitalisation of information. Despite its reputation for high energy consumption, the data center industry is shifting its focus towards sustainability and actively seeking solutions to minimise its environmental footprint.
To meet this purpose, in fiscal year 2023, Daikin Applied Europe introduced new product ranges tailored to data centre applications. These include air-cooled free cooling chillers, Pro-W fan-array computer room air-handling units (CRAH) and a dedicated control system with our proprietary optimisation logics (iDCM). Daikin offers several types of free cooling, including glycol-free systems, to meet the requirements of critical applications such as data centres. Our chiller range includes screw compressor units with in-house designed and manufactured Variable Frequency Drives (VFDs) mounted directly on the compressor for increased reliability and efficiency.
In addition, Daikin offers the Pro-W series, high-efficiency CRAH solutions manufactured in both the UK and Italy. With cooling capacities ranging from 200kW to 700kW, these units are suitable for even the largest data centers. Daikin control system Data Centre Manager (iDCM) uses advanced Artificial Intelligence-supported plant management systems to ensure that the units operate close to optimum performance levels, matching total capacity to actual load. Leveraging our century-long expertise in the HVAC industry, Daikin is dedicated to serving the data centre sector by creating specialised solutions. We showcased these innovations at the Data Centre World Event at ExCeL London and will participate in upcoming data centre events in Frankfurt on 22-23 May and Eurostars Madrid Tower on 21-22 May.
Investing in new technologies
A new investment is in progress for the construction of Building I, dedicated to research and development activities for innovative technologies, within Ariccia site of Daikin Applied Europe. This ambitious project represents an investment of 16 EUR million and is nearing complete.
Within this new facility there will be two main areas: the Engineering Area and the Climatic Test room.
The first is dedicated to prototyping and will house three test stands for water-to-water units with cooling capacities of 4500 kW, 600 kW and 300 kW respectively. There will also be a wind tunnel for fan testing and a component bench for Element testing.
The Climatic Test room has been designed by Daikin Applied Europe, and will be divided into three sections, which can be interconnected by partitions. These laboratories can test units with cooling capacities up to 100kW, 300 kW, 700kW respectively. Tests can be carried out on air-cooled units (chillers and heat pumps), water-to-water units, four-pipe and free cooling systems.
The Climatic Test room is designed to work with ambient temperatures between -20°C to 52°C, with the option of using outside air as an energy-saving measure for the system.
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