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EFFICIENT HOME ENERGY (EHE) is a joint venture between two partners: Whisper Tech Limited, a subsidiary of the New Zealand company Meridian Energy Ltd., which holds 40% of the capital; and the Mondragón Corporation, holding the remaining 60% through its Components Division, Fagor Electrodomésticos, Mondragón Inversiones and Mondragón Innovación. Meridian Energy Limited is New Zealand’s largest electric power generation and distribution company and the Mondragón Corporation is the leading business group in the Basque Country and the seventh in Spain.

The new company will manufacture and distribute a gas-fired micro Combined Heat and Power system known as the “WhisperGen”. This system acts as an efficient heating boiler catering for the home’s heat and hot water needs and at the same time it generates electricity that is either used in the home itself or transferred to the general electricity network.

The WhisperGen is based on an electrical generator driven by a Stirling (or external combustion) engine and is the subject of 20 years of research, design and development, initially developed in New Zealand by Whisper Tech. Over the last few years, Whisper Tech has worked in close collaboration with the Innovation Department of the Mondragón Components Division, which has adapted the system to European technical requirements and has spearheaded the WhisperGen’s industrialisation process.

The WhisperGen system, which is the first mass produced micro Combined Heat and Power system suitable for the typical European home, is bringing about a genuine quiet revolution in electricity generation, and will gradually replace traditional heating boilers in many markets. It provides major advantages for users and the environment: for a typical home it will reduce total energy costs in comparison with the conventional energy systems (by up to 20%) and it will significantly reduce CO2 emissions – (by up to 1 tonne per home per year).

EFFICIENT HOME ENERGY is based in the town of Tolosa, near San Sebastián, in a 2700 m2 factory building built on the industrial estate Arzabalza. It has invested around 6 million euros in product development, production tooling, and manufacturing facilities and equipment. The project does not start from scratch today, as both partners have been working since 2005 on the process of industrialising the WhisperGen system based on of the technological solution initially developed by Whisper Tech. Prototypes have already been built, and these have been tested and technically validated by several prestigious independent test houses.

Over 400 WhisperGen systems are currently installed and running in Germany, the UK, Holland and France, and a large number of energy distribution companies and heating system installers have expressed an interest in distributing the WhisperGen in their respective countries.

EFFICIENT HOME ENERGY begins its activities with confirmed orders from a number of major European distributors, which for 2009, its first full year, will secure a turnover of over 15 million euros and create employment for a workforce of 30 at the end of this year. Within five years the Company projects that its annual turnover will exceed 300 million euros and it could provide employment for over 200 people.

The WhisperGen is designed for European countries, including Germany, France, Holland and the United Kingdom, where the system has been tested over the last few years and has been widely accepted by customers and users. All distributors have shown great enthusiasm for the WhisperGen system, which represents for the new company a solid guarantee for the future.

Among Efficient Home Energy’s distributors are some of the major names in the European energy sector (both electricity and gas). Several of them have already signed agreements for the distribution of WhisperGen in 2009, and others are in an advanced stage of negotiation, with a high probability that these negotiations will be concluded in the coming months. 
 

http://www.mondragoncorporation.com