LG Electronics has opened a heat pump research center in Alaska of the United States to accelerate the development of heating, ventilation, and air conditioning products that deliver high performance even in extreme cold. This is directly related to business-to-business growth, one of the three pillars of the company’s 2030 Future Vision, which was announced last July, drawing much attention from the heat pump industry.
LG Electronics recently announced that it has launched a consortium in Anchorage, Alaska, to develop heat pump technology for use in heating and air conditioning products. The consortium includes the University of Alaska Anchorage and the University of Alaska Fairbanks, both of which are active in polar region research.
In addition, LG Electronics will establish a research center in Alaska. Heat pump products have difficulty in providing adequate heating performance in regions with low temperatures such as Alaska. This is because the pressure to compress a refrigerant is reduced, and the amount of the refrigerant circulated is reduced accordingly.
Therefore, LG Electronics decided to build a research center to develop and verify products in cold environments after judging that it will be able to create heat pumps that can deliver the highest level of heating performance in any environment. It plans to conduct repeated tests for a long time in various environmental conditions such as snow, rain, and extremely low temperatures that cannot be reproduced in its existing laboratories. This move is expected to raise the quality and reliability of products to a higher level.
Starting with the Alaska Heat Pump Research Center, LG Electronics will continue to expand its global R&D organization for cooling and heating solutions. Targeting North America and Europe where eco-friendly air conditioning systems that reduce carbon emissions are on the uptick, the company is also planning to establish a localized business structure from R&D to production, sales and maintenance.
Through this, LG Electronics is ultimately targeting the B2B business. The B2B business is relatively less affected by economic conditions compared to the B2C business and is expected to stably make profits. This explains why the company has previously collaborated with the California state government in supply six million heat pumps by 2030.