00:00As temperatures soar, so has demand for air conditioners.
00:04Sales of AC units in Spain and France more than doubled in May compared to a year earlier,
00:09while German sales were up nearly 40%.
00:12China's Medea sold out of its popular Porter Split air unit in May.
00:17My colleague Juliet Mann spoke to Tobias Strobel,
00:20head of technical innovation for residential air conditioning at Medea's German R&D centre.
00:27Yeah, this year the heat is, of course, incredible.
00:30And this year the difference for the AC business is, of course, that it's for a longer time, also at
00:35night.
00:36So this is quite new.
00:37And due to the climate change, we will have this more and more often.
00:41But the point is that in Central Europe we are really not prepared for such heat waves.
00:46That's why the demand for ACs is big, but you cannot install it.
00:51Air conditioning has never been a given in much of Europe.
00:56Are we now seeing or beginning to see a structural shift in expectations around cooling and comfort?
01:03For ACs, the people have more and more demand for it because of the climate change.
01:08But still there are too many regulations that it's not really allowed to have an outdoor unit on your facade
01:14installed.
01:15And the big issue is also we have a big lack of installer.
01:18So you cannot change this in just one or two years.
01:21So this is a big difference.
01:23So I think that the mindset is changing now a bit, but it still needs a lot of time until
01:27this comes to reality that we really have the ACs.
01:31But exactly that's why we developed the port aspect, which also solves all of these issues.
01:36Because we go around of these regulation things because our unit is not a fixed installation.
01:43And this is the big benefit what we have.
01:45I wanted to ask you about that because despite the regulations and the installer issues,
01:51as demand in Europe is surging, we're seeing Chinese manufacturers ramp up production just to keep pace.
01:58So I wonder what's changed in how companies like Medea operate so that you can move that fast.
02:06I think what we change is in my idea is that we have the strategy to make more customer needed
02:14ACs, let's say.
02:15Not to have in all Europe the same AC because it's not possible.
02:19And I think this mindset is also changed not just in Europe, but also in the Chinese brands.
02:24So like my idea that Europe is not one country, but it's different countries and different needs.
02:30So we have to develop dedicated AC units for the dedicated countries.
02:36For example, in Central Europe, you need completely different ACs than in the southern region.
02:42In the southern region, maybe the price is a big topic.
02:46But in the northern region, they also use it not just for cooling.
02:49They use it also as an air-to-air heat pump.
02:51So this is an additional benefit.
02:53But here in the wintertime, it can go to minus 40 degrees.
02:56So we have to develop a dedicated and efficient, more efficient unit for the northern country.
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