Menerga’s CO₂mpass Wins Heat Pump Innovation of the Year
When Menerga, a Systemair Company, picked up the Heat Pump Innovation of the Year award at the ATMOsphere Europe Summit in Padua this November, the recognition landed at a moment of rapid transition in Europe’s HVAC industry. The German manufacturer has spent decades refining equipment for some of the most demanding environments—public swimming pools chief among them—where ventilation, dehumidification, and heat recovery operate as a single, continuous system.
To understand how its latest innovation fits into this broader shift, MoveTheNeedle.news spoke with Menerga’s R&D team (Ralph Berger, Martin Schramm, Saša Kojić, and Anton Zupančič) who shared detailed insights into the thinking and engineering behind the award-winning CO₂mpass unit. Their contributions make clear how deeply integrated design and natural refrigerants have shaped the company’s technological direction.
An Engineering Tradition Rooted in Difficult Applications
Since its founding in 1980, Menerga has built its market position by focusing on applications where generic HVAC equipment tends to fall short. Public pools, industrial processes, and precision ventilation all demand equipment that can operate reliably under high load and high humidity, often with strict air quality and temperature requirements. Within the Systemair Group, Menerga serves as the competence centre for complex, high-efficiency air-handling solutions.
Menerga’s R&D engineers emphasise that this long-term focus has shaped every aspect of the company’s design culture. Over decades, they developed integrated technologies—polypropylene heat exchangers, high-efficiency heat pumps embedded directly into the AHU, and adiabatic cooling strategies—that reflect a consistent philosophy: treat heating, cooling, and ventilation as interconnected processes rather than isolated components.
CO₂mpass is a direct extension of that lineage.
Addressing Fragmentation in Building HVAC Systems
Across much of Europe’s building stock, HVAC systems remain fragmented. Cooling, heating, ventilation, and hot water production are often delivered by separate machines, sourced from different vendors, each with its own control logic. This segmentation leads to duplicated infrastructure and inefficient energy flows.
CO₂mpass, the R&D team explained, was developed specifically to counter that inefficiency. The system combines ventilation, dehumidification, cooling, heating, and domestic hot water generation in a single unit. Heat generated during cooling is immediately diverted to water or space heating, eliminating the need for standalone boilers or separate heat pumps in many cases.
This consolidation answers not only technical challenges but also the direction of EU policy, which increasingly promotes sector coupling across building systems. CO₂mpass operationalises that concept in a way that fits both new builds and retrofits.
Why CO₂—and Why Now
The team was clear that choosing R-744 (CO₂) was not an afterthought but the logical outcome of years of work to minimise F-gas use. With the EU’s F-gas regulation tightening and PFAS restrictions advancing under REACH, synthetic refrigerants—even newer blends—carry long-term uncertainty.
CO₂ offers regulatory stability, operational safety, and strong thermodynamic performance. Specifically, it provides:
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GWP 1, far below regulatory thresholds
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Zero ODP
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A1 safety classification, which simplifies integration
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High temperature capability, ideal for heat recovery
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Predictable pricing, free from quota-induced volatility
The R&D team noted that these factors make CO₂ uniquely suited for systems where recovered heat directly offsets fossil-based heating.
Engineering for Reliability at High Pressure
CO₂ systems operate at far higher pressures than traditional refrigerants, a challenge that has slowed their adoption in larger HVAC applications. Menerga’s engineers addressed this through careful component selection and the development of adaptive controls capable of managing the full transcritical cycle.
Their experience in designing heat pumps for pool ventilation—where systems face constant load fluctuations—proved particularly valuable. As the team described it, the goal was to “conceal the complexity inside the unit,” leaving operators with a system that behaves predictably and adjusts dynamically to maintain efficiency.
Quantifiable Benefits for Operators
Lower Climate Impact and Regulatory Alignment
With CO₂ carrying virtually no global warming potential, the climate benefit is immediate. Operators also avoid the emerging risks tied to PFAS use and F-gas phase-down schedules.
High Efficiency Through Internal Energy Reuse
By reusing energy that conventional systems discard, CO₂mpass is suited to buildings with overlapping heating and cooling demands: pools, hotels, hospitals, logistics halls, and office spaces.
Reduced Footprint and Simplified Operation
Replacing multiple devices with one consolidated unit reduces plantroom complexity and eases long-term maintenance.
Stable Refrigerant Supply
R-744 is widely available and inexpensive, offering cost stability that F-gases can no longer provide.
Early Market Reception
While CO₂mpass is in the early stages of rollout, planners and operators have reacted positively. According to the R&D team, the A1 safety classification of CO₂ has been particularly well received, as it simplifies integration into sensitive building structures. The high outlet temperatures achievable with R-744 also expand heat recovery opportunities and ease compatibility with existing heating systems.
Feedback so far has focused on practicality: the ability to integrate a multi-function system without adding complexity for the operator.
Where the Market Is Heading
Looking ahead, Menerga’s engineers expect strong growth in natural-refrigerant heat pumps, driven by grid electrification and the rising share of renewable electricity across Europe. Buildings with simultaneous heating, cooling, and ventilation demands stand out as primary adopters of integrated CO₂ systems.
Swimming pools remain an obvious fit, but the team points to expanding interest from hotels, healthcare, offices, and logistics operators—sectors that must manage rising energy costs alongside tightening emissions requirements.
A Strategic Validation
For Menerga, the award doesn’t mark a shift in direction so much as an affirmation of one. And for the company’s R&D team—whose detailed insights shaped this story—it reinforces that their long-running focus on natural refrigerants and integrated system design is now aligning with market demand and regulatory pressure.
The response to CO₂mpass—from planners to pool operators—suggests that this approach is gaining traction just as Europe accelerates decarbonisation across its building stock. Rather than a showcase prototype, the unit arrives as a commercial product built for real-world operation. In a sector facing hard deadlines on emissions and refrigerant restrictions, that practicality may prove far more influential than the award itself.