Spotlight on: HVAC solutions with Harvey Loyal at Mitsubishi Electric

Joe Dart speaks to Harvey Loyal, Market & Product Intelligence Specialist at Mitsubishi Electric, about the changing HVAC landscape and what solutions are available to ensure that you keep on track.

Mitsubishi Electric is one of the most recognisable brands operating in the heat pump space. There’s more to the company however, with a wide range of cooling, heating, ventilation and controls solutions also available from the manufacturer.

“We’re the renewable solutions provider,” says Harvey Loyal, Market & Product Intelligence Specialist at Mitsubishi Electric. “But the challenge is to keep up with the changing times and continue to provide effective solutions to the market.”

Much of that change is being driven by the government’s Net Zero carbon by 2050 target, which Harvey describes as the “North Star” for the business. “Decarbonisation is a key part of everyone’s agenda,” he adds.

The UK target for Net Zero has been in place since 2019, however Harvey notes that the last 18 months have seen the push to decarbonise existing buildings really gathering pace.

Harvey explains: “Retrofit will give us one of the clearest opportunities to get to that Net Zero target. It’s something that we’re seeing a lot within our business, and it dictates the type of products that are being used in those kinds of applications.”

Additionally, there has been a growing trend towards requirements for embodied carbon, with conversations happening “much more regularly”, according to Harvey. “We’re seeing that clear requirement from clients asking us for carbon information on our products.”

Harvey says that controls are increasingly becoming part of the discussion as well, with connected solutions becoming more popular options. He explains: “It links into the retrofit conversation because end users want to be able to use their buildings more efficiently.”

And, on the newbuild side, he says monitoring solutions are being utilised more to close the performance gap – the difference between how the designed and built building performs.

Another change is that, in recent years, ventilation has moved from a ‘nice to have’ to a necessity. He explains: “We saw a bump in interest from COVID on ventilation, but then it tapered down. However, now we are seeing a resurgence because of climate change and the overheating problem. And a nice byproduct of the ventilation solutions is you’re getting improved indoor air quality.”

It’s clear from what Harvey says that the building services industry is transforming at pace, so how can specifiers keep on top how the current challenges in the HVAC sector? Mitsubishi Electric’s national specification team is primed to assist projects from inception to completion.

Harvey explains: “Our specification team will be able to do that handholding with the consultant to look at what’s possible on a project. That way we can make it very clear early on and ensure there are no surprises as the project develops.

“Consultants been employed to do the design, but we’re able to give that support and that confidence.”

To help bolster confidence, Mitsubishi Electric creates lots of free resources for specifiers that can be accessed online, including webinars, CPDs and white papers. But much of the learning the company provides can also be provided to industry professionals, face-to-face.

Harvey says: “We do consultant roadshows where we’ll go to certain locations and talk to them about, say a new piece of their legislation that’s coming up, or sometimes when we are seeing a shift in the market or a trend and it’s like, ‘Hey, heads up, you need to start thinking about this’ and this is a solution that can help.”

Training is also available at Mitsubishi Electric locations nationwide, which offers added benefits as Harvey explains: “If you bring them in-house, suddenly it opens them up to stuff that maybe you couldn’t do at their offices. You’ve got the physical kit in front of you, we’ve got the technical department there who can come and say, ‘Oh, actually you know what, if you plug that widget in this way, it can do this’.”

Effective support is certainly needed against the backdrop of a changing regulatory landscape. The EU updated its F-Gas regulations in 2024, and the UK is currently trying to figure out how closely we choose to mirror or diverge from that version. The regulations signal a complete phase-down of HFCs by 2050, and although there is currently no decision from the UK government whether it will follow suit, it’s something specifiers need to consider, according to Harvey.

He says: “It could completely change the way we think about products and solutions. A specifier might have wanted to futureproof a project and gone with a VRF solution with a certain type of refrigerant. Now they still might be wanting to go with a VRF solution, but they’d have to consider a different refrigerant.”

The introduction of the UK Net Zero Carbon Buildings Standard (UKNZCBS) is also something industry professionals need to be aware of, according to Harvey. “It was a big deal because for so long in the industry we’ve kind of lacked that single bible on what a Net Zero building is. We’re already seeing clients adopting it into their designs, so I can only see that going from strength to strength.”

Harvey also expects greater focus to be put on Part O of the Building Regulations, with overheating becoming a bigger challenge in the UK: “Buildings are designed to keep heat in because of the way our country and our weather profile is, but that also brings with it certain challenges. I would encourage specifiers to think about the challenges of overheating, how to mitigate it, and also what solutions are out there to help you with those challenges.”

Mitsubishi Electric is developing new products all the time to help meet the challenges facing the sector. The company has recently made its new City Multi R32 YXM VRF system available to specify, ahead of the product’s release in May 2026.

VRF systems such as this are capable of providing both heating and cooling and Harvey says this product dovetails well with some of the upcoming challenges and changes on the horizon, such as new F-Gas standards and the UKNZCBS because it utilises a lower GWP refrigerant, R32.

The Ecodan CAHV-Z, a new commercial heat pump utilising R290 refrigerant from Mitsubishi Electric, similarly can be specified now and will be available next year for installations. This is the latest development in Mitsubishi Electric’s commercial heat pump product family, which offers market-leading solutions for a wide variety of applications.

Much of Mitsubishi’s Electric’s offering builds on the success of what’s come before, and this is very much true of its City Multi Hybrid VRF systems. This year the company celebrates 10 years of Hybrid VRF and it is still very much part of the business’ offering.

Harvey concludes: “Hybrid VRF is very much here to stay. There’s a lot of discussion out there about how we are going to be replacing it. No, it’s just another option in the VRF family.

“If you don’t want refrigerant in the occupied space, we have a hybrid VRF option for you, which is water, and that obviously negates all the need for leak detection, and brings the amount of refrigerant in the system right down.”

Mitsubishi Electric’s Ecodan CAHV-Z, City Multi YXM VRF and City Multi Hybrid VRF solutions will all be on display at elementalLONDON, the UK’s leading event for advancing the efficiency of buildings, on 19-20 November at Excel, London. To register for your free ticket, click here.