China's Intensifying War on Air Pollution Stimulates the HVAC Filter Market, Finds Frost & Sullivan

High competition from local players compel global participants to target niche applications

BEIJING, March 10, 2016 /PRNewswire/ — Severe spells of haze-smog and concerns that the particulate matter in China is well above the approved limit of 35 micrograms per cubic meter have prompted the Government to issue new air quality standards. These standards are aimed at protecting and improving the environment as well as quantitatively analysing atmospheric environmental pollution. The stringent standards and legislations will have a direct impact on the revenue growth of the heating ventilation, air conditioning (HVAC) air filters market, especially in the high-end segment.

New analysis from Frost & Sullivan, Chinese HVAC Filter Market (http://www.frost.com/sublib/display-report.do?id=MBBE-01-00-00-00&src=PR), finds that the market earned revenue of $840.0 million in 2014 and estimates this to reach $1.62 billion in 2022, at a compound annual growth rate of 8.5 percent. In this research, Frost & Sullivan’s analysts thoroughly examine the market segments of standard filters, high efficiency particulate air filters (HEPA), and gas phase filters.

For complimentary access to more information on this research, please visit: http://corpcom.frost.com/forms/CHN_PR_JZheng_MBBE_02March16

Due to the continued transfer of worldwide manufacturing to China, the industrial sector is also one of the biggest polluters as well as adopters of air filters. The most lucrative markets are electronics, especially semiconductors and flat panel display (FDP), and pharmaceutical manufacturing. Meanwhile, the standard and gas phase segments will get a boost from the sizeable growth in the commercial and residential buildings segment.

“As a result of the vast market demand, the competitive landscape in China has been changing, with local manufactures gaining market share over international participants,” said Frost & Sullivan Energy & Environment Research Analyst Gautham Gnanajothi. “As the air filter market in China is price driven, the global majors have been forced to develop new pricing strategies.”

The impact of this price pressure is felt mostly in the affordable low- and medium-efficiency filters segment, where price is a key purchasing criterion. In the high-efficiency filter segment, the price is based on the media used. Some manufacturers, mostly local, source the filter media locally, which enables them to offer economical products.

Further, the variation in price depends on the region and the intensity of competition there. For instance, the price decline over the past couple of years has been steep in South China and East China, as there are more numbers of manufacturers and therefore, competition, in those regions.

“To stave off the competition from local participants and gain an edge in the market, it is critical to target niche applications such as nuclear or biological clean rooms, which have stringent requirements,” noted Gnanajothi. “In due course, the competition from local participants will reduce, mainly for high-end filters, as certification requirements, national standards, legislation and regulations are becoming stringent.”

Manufacturers need to constantly take initiatives to educate end users on the benefits of their innovative technologies. These efforts and frequent innovations will go a long way in sustaining the rapid growth of the HVAC filter market.

Chinese HVAC Filter Market is part of the Building Management Technologies (http://ww2.frost.com/research/industry/environment-building-technologies/building-management-technologies) Growth Partnership Service program. Frost & Sullivan’s related studies include: Transformational Trends in the Global Building Energy Management Solutions Industry, European HEMS and BEMS Market, Global Smart Gas Meters Market, Global Demand Response Trends, and Beijing Data Center Services Market Analysis. All studies included in subscriptions provide detailed market opportunities and industry trends evaluated following extensive interviews with market participants.

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Chinese HVAC Filter Market
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China"s Intensifying War on Air Pollution Stimulates the HVAC Filter Market, Finds Frost & Sullivan

Mainstream finds partners for 448-MW wind farm off Scotland

InterGen-led tie-up ready to take on 448-MW wind project off Scotland

Jan 26, 2016 13:57 CET by Tsvetomira Tsanova

Siemens turbines at Westermost Rough wind farm. Source: Siemens AG. www.siemens.com/press

January 26 (SeeNews) – An equity consortium that includes InterGen, Siemens Project Ventures, The Marguerite Fund and Infrared Capital is ready to take the 448-MW Neart na Gaoithe wind project off Scotland into construction.

Ireland’s Mainstream Renewable Power, which developed the project, said today it is in exclusive discussions with the InterGen-led tie-up to take the wind farm to financial close and into construction. 

In July it was reported that Mainstream is negotiating the sale of the project to InterGen and Siemens Project Ventures. The developer did not reveal any further details on the talks today.

The project, planned for the Outer Forth Estuary in the North Sea, will use Siemens’ 7-MW turbines. It has secured a 15-year Contract for Difference (CfD) at a strike price of GBP 114.38 (USD 162.3/EUR 149.7), which Andy Kinsella, chief operating officer (COO) at Mainstream, says is the lowest rate achieved for offshore wind in the UK.

The Neart na Gaoithe offshore wind farm has already received several offers for power purchase agreements (PPAs) for its full output over the term of the CfD, Mainstream added. The deals are currently under negotiation.

Subject to the outcome of a judicial review by Scottish courts, the power plant could be fully operational by 2020. The contracts for the equipment and construction have been agreed and the needed debt funding has been sourced from commercial banks, Kinsella added.

According to the developer’s estimates, GBP 540 million will be directly spent in Scotland during the offshore wind park’s construction, followed by GBP 610 million during the operational phase.

(GBP 1 = USD 1.419/EUR 1.309)

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Mainstream finds partners for 448-MW wind farm off Scotland

Surprising study finds that solar energy can also cause climate change (a little)

In this photograph taken on August 23, 2015, a general view shows construction taking place at Roha Dyechem solar plant at Bhadla some 225 kms north of Jodhpur in the western Indian state of Rajasthan. MONEY SHARMA/AFP/Getty Images

Large solar arrays could have some surprising side effects, according to a new study, including causing changes in the local climate.

On a global scale, these changes will be minor compared to what would happen if humans continue to burn fossil fuel for energy instead, but are still worth watching, scientists say.

Figuring out how renewable energy sources will affect their local landscapes is an increasingly relevant challenge for scientists, as more and more nations are vowing to slash their carbon outputs and switch to alternatives, such as solar and wind energy. Previous studies have shown that both solar arrays and wind farms have the potential to cause regional changes in temperature and precipitation by altering the amount of solar radiation absorbed by the Earth or disrupting local airflow patterns.

With this in mind, Aixue Hu, a climate change research scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, conducted a study, published Monday in Nature Climate Change, that attempted to predict the climatic effects of solar arrays. 

For their experiments, Hu and his colleagues assumed a low-carbon scenario, in which global greenhouse gas emissions would start to decline after the year 2020 as renewable energy sources are more widely used.

The researchers then carried out a series of simulations. The first simulation included solar panel installations across the world’s deserts — the parts of the world likely to receive the most sunlight — and throughout all the world’s urban areas.

The second simulation mimicked that scenario, but also assumed that the world would continue to consume a lot of energy through the use of air conditioning. 

The final simulation dropped the thermostat assumption and scaled back the number of solar panel arrays. This scenario is the “more realistic” of the bunch, according to Hu, and was meant to test whether a more modest solar panel installation would be able to address the global energy demand through the end of the century.

After running the simulations, the researchers found that the solar power generated in each of the experiments would be enough to satisfy global electricity demand by 2100. That was the good news. But the experiments also showed that the panels do have an impact on climate, at least regionally.

Solar panels change the way sunlight is reflected and absorbed by the Earth. Any radiation they take in is radiation that’s not being absorbed by the Earth. This leads to a cooling effect in the region surrounding the array. In fact, the first two simulations in this study, which assumed solar panel installations throughout the world’s desert and urban areas, produced a 2-degree Celsius regional cooling in the desert regions. This cooling was also associated with a 20 percent decrease in precipitation in the deserts. Other, slightly broader changes in precipitation and wind patterns occurred as a result in the regions surrounding the deserts.

In urban areas, the effects were a little different. In the first simulation, the model predicted a very small amount of cooling, with temperature falling approximately 0.26 degrees Celsius. In the second simulation, the one in which global thermostat regulation is significantly increased, the large amount of power consumed actually produced an urban heat island effect, in which human energy use releases heat into the environment and causes the regional temperature to warm up. In this scenario, the warming from the heat island effect essentially compensated for the cooling caused by the solar panels.

When considered on a global scale, these effects become much smaller. In the first simulation, the average change in global temperature is an average decline of about 0.34 degrees Celsius, relative to the temperature that would be expected under the same low-carbon climate scenario with no solar parks. In the second simulation, where the heat island effect is taken into account, there would be an average increase in global temperature of about 0.09 degrees Celsius. 

However, the authors acknowledge that it’s unrealistic to assume such widespread solar panel installations in the future. So they looked to the third simulation for a more realistic view of what’s to come.

In the third simulation, which included fewer solar panel arrays, the climate effects are scaled down accordingly. The average global cooling observed in this simulation is only a decline of about 0.04 degree Celsius. 

The study shows that, while large solar arrays can cause some significant regional changes in climate, “globally it will not affect the global climate much,” said Hu. “This is a big contrast with the fossil fuels.” According to most climate projections, human-caused global warming — the result of releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere — could lead to anywhere from 1 to nearly 3 degrees of global temperature increases under even moderate climate scenarios.

That said, the study does also provide some insight into how the local solar panel-induced climate effects might be minimized. The results suggested that local climate effects were smaller in urban areas than in the more remote desert areas and can be mitigated by the urban heat island effect. So while it’s tempting to place large solar arrays in desert areas, where they’re most likely to receive the greatest amount of interrupted sunlight, the authors note that “a more distributed solar panel installation could reduce the impact of the solar panels on regional and global climate.”

And being aware of the way certain regions could be affected by large solar deployments, could help policymakers make decisions about how to distribute panels in these places and how to prepare for the local changes that could occur as a result, Hu said.  

So future research may also examine how the distribution of solar arrays could be changed in order to maximize their positive effects on land use and minimize their negative ones.

In the meantime, this study reinforces the idea that a transition to renewable energy is imperative to protecting Earth’s climate future. While the transition won’t be without its own effects, the authors note that the alternative — a world in which fossil fuel burning is allowed to continue unabated — would be far worse.

Surprising study finds that solar energy can also cause climate change (a little)

Individuals Release Their Own Distinguishable Cloud of Microbes, Sequencing Study Finds

NEW YORK (GenomeWeb) – People give off their own distinguishable cloud of microbes, according to a study carried out by researchers at the University of Oregon.

People emit more than a million biological particles an hour by touching surfaces as well as by releasing ones from their breath, clothes, skin, and hair, the researchers noted. It’s long been known that people can transmit pathogens to one another as well as to surrounding surfaces, but exactly how they affect indoor air surrounding them has been unclear.

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Individuals Release Their Own Distinguishable Cloud of Microbes, Sequencing Study Finds