New hot water heat pump lands, with warning to avoid “rubbish” products

Reclaim Energy’s latest hot water heat pump offering – an “industry shaking” collaboration with Japanese tech giant Panasonic – is ready for delivery in Australia, following a much-hyped launch in October of last year.

In a LinkedIn post on Thursday, Reclaim announced the arrival of the KY Series of heat pumps, named after the company’s zero-emissions factory on Kyoto, Japan.

“This collaboration combines Panasonic’s cutting-edge compressor technology with our innovative hot water system design solution, promising unparalleled energy efficiency and savings in this industry shaking collaboration,” the post says. ⁠

Chris Taylor, Reclaim Energy managing director, says Australia’s now the first country outside of Japan where Panasonic has released a hot water product – a fact he believes “speaks volumes” about the Australian market.

“With everything that’s going on globally, in Europe and the US and all the momentum around heat pumps, it’s reassuring to see that a quality supplier …[and] product is being brought into the market in Australia,” Taylor told One Step Off The Grid on Friday.

“So, despite the fact that there’s this huge global demand and pressure to supply globally, we’ve actually managed to secure a quality product out of Japan to come to Australia as a first priority.

“The fact that they’re the number two supplier of heat pumps in Japan means that, from our perspective, issues like supply, issues like quality; confidence in the product is sky high, because they’ve been doing this for 20 years.”

Taylor says the KY Series collaboration with Panasonic will be sold alongside its existing heat pump unit – which includes WiFi enabled control – as more of a “set and forget” offering.

“A lot of people have been holding off since October waiting for us to launch. And now that we’ve launched we’re seeing an uptick in demand and a lot of people are specifying that they want the Panasonic version of the unit,” he says.

The new product arrives at a time when the push to slash home energy costs by swapping out gas hot water systems for efficient, electric air source heat pumps is driving record uptake of the technology.

In December, an all-time high of 34,000 air source heat pumps (ASHPs) were installed in the third quarter of 2023, according to the Clean Energy Regulator, and subsidised through the federal government’s Small-scale Renewable Energy Scheme.

The record quarter took the total number of ASHP hot water systems installed for the year to 94,000 – well past the total 86,000 installed in 2022.

As SunWiz managing director Warwick Johnston has explained, the rise and rise of heat pump hot water – both in Australia and globally, is part of an overall trend of electrification that government policies are helping along.

The trend is also being driven by new 7-star requirements for new-build homes; compatibility with rooftop solar to soak up excess daytime generation; and the fact that in some states, like Victoria, eligible households can “double-dip” and claim a rebate for both PV and ASHP.

It’s also got a great deal to do with the amount of savings that can be achieved – a particularly attractive prospect for home owners stung by rising energy costs and squeezed by rising interest rates and other cost of living pressures.

All of this is great for the local hot water heat pump industry, of course, but Taylor warns that rebates can have unwanted side-effects, such as were seen in the rooftop solar market in the early says of the SRES scheme.

“There’s a lot of homeowners are confused about … the quality of products that are available in the market,” he tells One Step.

“Well, you get what you pay for. If you’re going to put rubbish in, you’re gonna get rubbish results.

“I think … one of the concerns that a lot of credible manufacturers have is… what controls are put in place to ensure that we don’t become a dumping ground [for cheap and poor quality hot water heat pumps].

“One of the problems that you’ve got is a limited auditing capability,” he adds. “Victoria is probably the best, they’re auditing about 5% of installs for compliance.

“So, when you consider all the heat pumps that are going into the market, that’s five-eighths of bugger all, so [that results in] install issues and quality issues around longevity of the product, and market channel issues, which is, are these people gonna be around in 10 to 15 years time to back up their product?”

Taylor says he hopes Reclaim’s collaboration with Panasonic helps send a reassuring message to consumers that they can trust and be confident in what they’re buying.

“And I hope what that does, in all honesty, is that attracts other quality suppliers to enter the market and we start to see some real differentiation around performance, longevity of product, etc. …And people get value for money based on energy savings.”

Reclaim is offering a seven-year warranty on the new KY Series heat pump and offers eight years warranty on its existing products.

“We’ve just extended the warranties …to eight years, parts and labour, on our WiFi units because we can monitor them and see what’s going on,” Taylor says.

“And we offer seven years on the Panasonic heat pump, so both of those products have the longest warranty of any on the market,” he says.