Tequs is a technology company from Norway that manufactures and develops CO2 heat pumps and hydronic solutions for commercial and industrial purposes.
Interview with Joakim Reintz Søgård, CEO of Tequs.
Easy Engineering: What are the main areas of activity of the company?
Joakim Reintz Søgård: After many years of research and development, we launched our first product series of CO2 heat pumps earlier this year. We are now experiencing massive demand from all over the world and are in a significant scaling phase. To ensure that all deliveries are successful for the end user, it is important for us that our partners are quality-conscious and possess high competence. Therefore, we currently have a very high level of meeting activity with potential partners from Europe and North America to determine who will supply products in specific markets.
E.E: What’s the news about new products/services?
J.R.S: Traditionally, CO2 heat pumps are complex and challenging to work with. The end product is too expensive for many, and the area of use has been too narrow, making it a niche product that scales poorly in the value chain.
Our heat pumps, on the other hand, come ready to use from the factory, are compact (690mm wide), and can handle higher return temperatures than other CO2 heat pumps while maintaining a high COP. This makes the product especially well-suited for retrofitting heating systems designed for a gas burner and for industrial needs. The product is also geared for scale production, which helps keep prices lower than the custom made heat pumps that we primarily compete against today.
E.E: What are the ranges of products/services?
J.R.S: Primarily, we sell heat pumps and hydronic kits, which include everything on the water side of a technical room within a frame. We also offer consulting assistance per project. Although we are equipped to handle high production volumes of heat pumps, it is still important to us to consider the entire heating system and not just the heat pump in isolation. This is to ensure that we utilize all potential heat sources and assist in optimizing the entire solution so that we achieve maximum utilization and energy efficiency.
E.E: What is the state of the market where you are currently active?
J.R.S: Our initial analyses indicated that we had found a gap in the market, but we never expected such a massive flow of inquiries from the European and North American markets as we are seeing now. We receive hundreds of inquiries from contractors, wholesalers, and end customers every week. This tells us that the West is in great need of a product like this and that we are going to see a massive shift from fossil fuel heating to electric heating in the coming years. Those of us who are in the midst of this see that we are entering a very positive development towards emission-free heating, which will proceed faster than we could have imagined.
E.E: What can you tell us about market trends?
J.R.S: Now that the market for converting from fossil to electric heating has started to accelerate, we see that there will be a need to push for more efficient decision-making processes and more efficient deliveries. We see a large untapped potential in streamlining the process from when an end customer decides they want to install a heat pump to when the heat pump is delivered. Today, this process is challenging and complicated. At Tequs, we have focused on simplifying the installations by offering the entire heating center as plug-and-play, but we still see that there is a lack of a perfect platform to facilitate everything.
E.E: What are the most innovative products/services marketed?
J.R.S: We have long had a CO2 heat pump that met the thermodynamic requirements that were not covered before. We can handle up to 50°C in return temperature. This was particularly challenging in itself to develop, but for us, it was crucial that we could offer a total product that could also meet the demands we knew would come as a result of the phase-out of fossil heating. Therefore, we have worked for a long time to make the product plug-and-play and compact enough to fit through all the doors in the existing building stock. We were also aware that the water side of the heat pumps in technical rooms was a time-consuming and complicated process. That’s why we have developed our own hydronic kit that has all the unique technical principles needed to cover different requirements in different buildings. Instead of a HVAC engineer having to design the water side time and again and a plumber having to build it on-site, we can now offer the entire water side ready to use in a box. The executing contractor then only needs to connect the components to electricity and water before the system is ready to be started up.
E.E: What estimations do you have for 2024?
J.R.S: Had we rushed headlong into this market, we could have sold enormous volumes of heat pumps, but we are now a bit cautious about taking on too much at once in the early phase. It is important for us that all deliveries are successful, and this requires delivering the right product for the right project and ensuring that the installation is performed correctly. Therefore, we spend a lot of resources on training and assisting all new customers. Our sales targets are set based on where we know we can maintain quality rather than quantity.