S2E04

From Gas to Grid: Reimagining Urban Heat in Europe | Modular Systems for Altbau |Roots Energy|S2E4

with Geralt· Roots Energy· 61m

TL;DR

Roots Energy offers modular, noiseless heat pump systems, simplifying urban building decarbonization by addressing space, noise, and installation complexity.

Synopsis

Roots Energy tackles the challenge of decarbonizing heating in dense European cities, characterized by old buildings, fragmented systems, and noise constraints. Traditional air-source heat pumps often face acceptance and space issues, while conventional installations are complex and costly. The company's solution centers on modular, pre-fabricated systems like the 'Roots Hub' and passive ambient heat absorbers, which enable noiseless operation and simplified installation. By integrating software and hardware, Roots Energy reduces friction for landlords and installers, making heat pump retrofits more economical and scalable for multi-story buildings.

Key metrics

by the numbers · 8

12 kW
Max apartment heat pump performance
1980
Electrical system upgrade threshold
50-100,000€
Traditional tech room cost
70 m
On-site geothermal depth
300 m
Geothermal permit-free depth
50-100 years
Passive absorber lifespan
40%
Landlord cost savings
500 kW
Max Roots Hub capacity

Topics

8 tags

Urban HeatHeat PumpsGeothermalModular SystemsInstallation EfficiencyRetrofittingPermitting ReformESG Investment

Stats

Duration: 1h 01m
Words: 10.0k
Questions: 46

Timeline

10 chapters

Roots House R&D Overview
Geralt introduces the Roots House, their R&D facility, where they develop noiseless, efficient, and resilient thermal systems for urban heat pumps.
Apartment Heat Pump Demonstration
Geralt showcases a compact apartment heat pump system, including thermal storage and a small compressor module, suitable for 2-5 people and scalable up to 12 kW.
Roots Hub: Technical Room in a Box
The 'Roots Hub' is presented as a pre-fabricated boiler room in a box, simplifying complex installations by requiring only two pipes and an electrical connection, designed for plug-and-play deployment.
Comparison: Traditional vs. Roots Tech Room
Geralt contrasts a traditional, complex, and expensive technical room (costing 50-100k€) with the compact, simplified Roots Hub, highlighting the reduction in complexity and potential for error.
Passive Absorbers and Geothermal Sources
Outside the building, passive heat exchangers (absorbers) and geothermal boreholes (70m deep on-site, typically 150-200m) are shown as noiseless, legally compliant ambient heat sources for the system.
Geralt's Background and Roots Energy's Mission
Geralt shares his journey from construction engineering to software design, emphasizing the application of product thinking and user experience to revolutionize the energy transition in Europe's dense urban environments.
Software Thinking for Hardware Innovation
Geralt explains how software principles like convenience, user experience, and friction reduction are applied to hardware development, leading to cheaper, faster, and pre-fabricated solutions for real estate.
User Benefits and Installation Simplicity
The system offers 40% cost savings for landlords, simplified installation (requiring only basic plumbing skills) for installers, and an improved user experience for tenants, including optional cooling.
Payback and Target Audience
The primary target audience is building owners with end-of-life fossil heating systems. For them, renewables offer economic advantages over renewing fossil systems, despite initial higher CAPEX.
Proposed Regulatory Shift
Geralt advocates for a policy change where renewing fossil systems requires an approval process, while renewables are considered the standard, frictionless option, accelerating decarbonization.

Key insights

5 takeaways

01
Noiseless Heat Sources Drive Adoption
Urban heat pump adoption is hindered by noise from active ventilators. Roots Energy's passive ambient absorbers, combined with geothermal, eliminate noise, removing a major barrier to neighbor acceptance and regulatory issues.
02
Pre-fabricated Systems Reduce Installation Costs
The 'Roots Hub' acts as a 'technical room in a box, ' pre-assembling complex components. This approach drastically cuts installation time and costs, making heat pump retrofits accessible to a wider range of installers and reducing overall project expenses by up to 40%.
03
Installer Skill Gap Addressed by Design
Roots Energy's plug-and-play system requires minimal specialized training; any installer capable of plumbing water pipes can deploy it. Remote commissioning and monitoring further reduce on-site labor and ensure quality, mitigating the technician shortage.
04
Regulatory Friction Impedes Transition Speed
Current regulations favor renewing fossil systems over installing renewables, creating unnecessary friction and complexity. A policy shift is needed where renewing fossil systems requires approval, while renewables are considered standard and frictionless.
05
Historical Precedent for Energy Transition
Vienna's successful transition from decentralized coal/oil to gas in the 1970s provides a blueprint. The strategy involved respecting ownership structures, providing new infrastructure, and offering added convenience (e.g., lower cost, cooling) to drive voluntary adoption.

Pull quotes

6 quotes

Our focus is on noiseless so completely noiseless and efficient and resilient ambient sources for heat pumps in cities.
Geralt
This is the roots hub. This is actually our core product. And this thing is a technical room in a box. So or a boiler room in a box how you call it.
Geralt
We made things much cheaper and much faster and the software thinking is what enables this.
Geralt
The advantage for the landlord is that they're probably they're saving compared to conventional solutions roughly 40%.
Geralt
They still have the friction in terms of regulatory in term even though it's the safer system the better system the more desirable system the very regulatory pattern especially a very complicated grant system it doesn't help.
Geralt
I would say those who have a fossil system end of life and want to renew it with the fossil fossil system they should go through an approval process the renewables should considered as state-of-the-art
Geralt

Transcript1553 cuesClick a timestamp to jump

Hello, welcome to a new episode here in
the energy bridge. Today we have in
the office of roots energy with Geralt
who is going to make us a tour to see
your solution and the office which is
pretty cool. So if you can show around.
So yeah very looking forward and this
is before the interview just make a
context. So yeah, welcome and thank you
for having us here in your office.
>> Yeah. Awesome. Thank you very much. So
my name is Geralt. I'm Hi, I'm one of
the founders of Roots Energy. you are
in our what we call the Roots House.
It's our research and development
building and we work here and we develop
all the products and the solutions in
here. And then I give you a tiny
overview of what we are doing here. a
long story short we're developing
thermal system for cities and what we're
doing is we're solving the problem of
the ambient heat sources that heat pumps
need so that they really work in the
cities. Our focus is on noiseless so
completely noiseless and efficient and
resilient ambient sources for heat pumps
in cities.
>> Yeah, we're going to go deeper in the
interview. So please show us the
>> so
>> where everything is cooked. What you see
in the building here is one floor
of six floors and each floor
is able to replicate a typical situation
in European urban cities. That means no
matter how you emit the heat in this
case we are emitting it through these
panels., if you have normal
radiators, if you have underfloor
heings, if the heat pumps are in the
basement or if they are an apartment
like we can cover everything here.
And what I'm showing here is a
building that is heated with
panels. So this is the most efficient
thing you can do do right now. It can
do the heating and the cooling with
Yeah. Yeah. with everything just with
this one panel.
>>.
>> If you turn around, what you see here
for example is an apartment heat pump.
>> Oh wow.
>> So this part here is actually the
thermal storage for a hot water and also
for the heating itself. And the heat
pump itself is actually the tiny thing
in here.
>> Oh, I assume it's more.
>> So it's not more. You usually Yeah, you
just put it in the shelf. it's in a
small modular compressor module
that can be cascaded too. and
usually that's everything you need for
one apartment.
>> Wow. So for how many people can be used
this like an apartment for five people
like
>> this small setup you see here is usually
the right one for if like two people
live in an apartment.
>> Okay.
>> If you have something bigger I
show you around.
Don't see there.
>> Yeah,
>> it's a little it's a little messy in the
basement. we have something else.
So, this bigger device here with a
bigger with the bear I'm I'm getting
to this later. so, this is the
bigger version of this with a bigger hot
water tank and then a bigger heat pump.
So, this is usually what what you would
have for apartments where let's
say like four or five people live.
>> Okay.
>> So, and usually you put this in a
small storage room and so on. So how
big is this in power? Like
>> that's exactly the same size as a
fridge.
>> No, no, but in power like
>> So it goes up right now to 12 kW of
performance.
>> Okay.
>> Which is more than enough for everything
you encounter in a city in terms of
apartments.
>> Sure. So you don't have to make any
arrangement in the electrical system to
install it. It's just
>> Well, that depends. So if usually you
have an old electrical system and you
install something like this, you have to
do something a little with the
electrical system in the house
>> to reinforce a bit.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If the building is say
is built after 1980, usually you don't
have to. so but that's just a very
rough rule of thumb.
>> So but you have to look at electrical
system at the house if everything is
fine before.
>> Sure. Sure. So what you see right here
is actually something that is usually in
a basement. and I show you in the
basement what this what it does. This
is the roots hub. This is actually our
core product. And this thing is a
technical room in a box. So or a boiler
room in a box how you call it. So the
whole techn the problem with the whole
technology usually is it's pretty
complicated and complex and you need
engineering companies and very competent
installers and so on. M
>> you don't need that anymore with our
system. So you don't need a technical
room even. You put this one somewhere in
the corner.
>> you just have two pipes per
ambient source, two pipes per building
and a lamp cable and an electrical plug
and that's it.
>> Yeah, super plug and play.
>> Yeah, it's plug and play. In this case,
you look at something that has an hybrid
source. means flow and return for air
source, flow and return for ground
source. And this is two buildings.
>> That's it.
>> And I show you now the basement. Yeah.
>> And in the basement itself,
>> you see how those rooms normally look.
>> Yeah. So if you can show here, you can
see the integration. So it's the
solution for can be two buildings as you
show here.
>> Yeah. Yeah. In this case, right? Right.
>> Cool. And you can use source from the
ground.
>> Yeah. Right. Right. And it's mixed. And
this is a passive absorber that we are
showing that will I show you later.
because in the cities usually silent is
not good enough. You read really
completely noiseless.
>>.
>> And what you see here is this building
had no place for a tech room. So they
had just a very tiny room,
>> storage room and the roots is in
there. And it wouldn't have been
possible without it.
>> So let's go to the let's go down there.
So
on the way downstairs, I show you
another heat pump and then I show you
the tech room. Okay.
>> So this is all part of the office.
>> Yeah. Yeah. This is floors and
everything of our of our system.
>> So what do you this is another form of
an apartment heat pump. this is an
Austrian partner company that we're
working with and in this case the water
boiler or the water tank is in
here and in whatever size you want it
and this is the heat pump and the heat
pump is either somewhere in a small
storage room or it can be above the
entrance or so on.
>> It's not that big as I thought. That's
super cool solution.
And this is the radiator for
>> Yeah, this is Yeah, this is another
radiator. Like we have different
radiators in the building. this is an
this is an active radiator or a fan
coil. it usually substitutes normal
radiators and it has active fans
in there. And if you need more
performance or if you want to have
cooling those can those those can do
both.
>> Cool. And the solution?
>> Yeah, I would have shown you
afterwards. So I think I show you down
so that you see the all the tech
internal in the house and then I show
you the empty box.
>> Yeah.
>> So wow, what an office.
>> So you're really looking for expand
expansion.
>> Yeah. Yeah, we do.
Oops.
>> Yeah. Here is where everything is here.
So,
so what you see here
is a room how it's usually
traditionally done.
>> So, this is Yeah. Right. So, this is
this is all the control systems and
all the tech you do it if it's
traditionally done. a system like
this. We have a little more because it's
also an R&D setup. But a long story
short, this kind of room is why
everybody's afraid of it. There's you
need engineering office to build
something like this. there's a lot of
room for failure for the installers and
not many can do it. And those rooms
easily cost 50 to€100, 000 if you do
them.
>> And the root hub you saw over there has
all this stuff in this little box. So
every like everything that is complex
and everything that can be done wrong
or most everything is in this box and
you put it just somewhere in a corner.
We don't even need a tech room. a
niche is enough and it doesn't matter
where it stands. Usually it's in a
basement but it can also be somewhere
in the attic wherever.
>> It's not so much and that's the heat
exchangers, right?
>> That is one of the we heat exchangers
for research purposes.
>> Yeah. Yeah. So, so
>> you have your own pilot here in your
office. That's super cool. Yeah. Like
you hear
>> we have in this building I tell
I talk a bit more about this outside. So
the ambient source itself, we
have every ambient source you can
imagine. So from different kind of air
sources, ground sources, solar
thermal solar so everything you
would need. and what it did.
>> Yeah, this is this is the probably
the most modern version of the apartment
heat pump that we're using right now.
This is from a Swedish partner company
and this is the bigger version of
what I showed you before with higher
performance and a long story short, I
think this is probably the mainstream
mainstream product that goes into the
apartments when it comes to
retrofitting apartments.
>> Yeah. Okay. Yeah. So, let's go outside
to see the source.
>> Finally sunny. Yeah. Yeah. Spring's
coming.
So this
>> Wow. But look at the building, man. It's
super cool.
>> Yeah. The this is a building from
the 70s that we completely renovated and
we made it from the ground up as a
building that can replicate every
situation that you encounter in a
European city. So no matter if it's a
central oil, central gas, decentralized
gas, if you need geothermal, if you need
only air source, if you have
photovoltaic, whatever, like we can do
it all here. And
>> the cos we have six research ge
geothermal here.
>> and we have these passive absorbers.
In these passive absorbers, they are
heat exchangers. passive heat exchangers
with brine in there. And no matter if we
just put them somewhere on the wall or
if we put them in a box like here, it
doesn't even have electricity. So it
just works with natural convection.
>> Okay?
>> And that means the natural air that
flows through it and it's completely
noiseless and it's it's the advantage is
because it's completely noiseless, you
don't have any legal issues. You don't
have any acceptance issues.
>> No. With the neighbors, no problem.
>> Right. Right. Right. Right. And it's
easy in a single very simple system. It
can be combined with geothermal.
>> What is the depth of this geothermal?
>> Well, in this case they are only 70 m
because where we can address each
of those separately. But in normal cases
it's somewhere usually 150 mters. It can
go down to 200 250.
>> And until 200 m there's no permission
that you need required, right?
>> Yeah. until 300.
>> 300.
>> Yeah. Yeah. But it doesn't
like economically usually 200 is the
limit.
>> Yeah. We interview some other startup
that it's making flex drill and is up
to 200. So
>> yeah. Yeah.
>> Yeah. It's cool.
>> Yeah.
>> Yeah.
>> So yeah, but this is those this
combination with the passive absorbers
and the geothermal having all this in
a single simple system. no cascading
system like it's just super
robust that is the core in combination
with the hop is the core of our
technology and we I think that's also
important and we solve for all those
heat pump manufacturers the problem that
they have in the city in dense cities an
ambient source they need that heat so
that heat pumps work
>> that's great
>> super cool yeah so now we go to the
interview welcome to a new episode here
in the energy bridge. Today we are in
the office of root energy. we made a
small tour. You can see there the
solution outside also inside. They have
their own pilot in the building. How
cool is that? So Geral, thank you for
having us here again.
>> You're welcome.
>> And yeah, really looking forward for
this.
>> yeah, thank you very much for the tour.
I'm actually I love your office first of
all. You definitely have done a
super job. Before we get
deep into that, tell us about yourself
and tell us about walk us through your
journey of getting to Roots Energy.
>> So, thanks for having me. So, I'm
actually a construction engineer by
training. So, I grew up in a
construction company. My father owned a
company and I was already working on
construction buildings together with
my father painting floor plans and so
on. So that's how I got into this and
years later I spent a lot of time in
software and in software design and in
this time I learned how you combine the
product thinking and the software
thinking and especially the user
experience thinking on how to disrupt
and revolutionize a certain industry.
And this part in my for in my former
life brought me a couple of years ago
into the energy transition energy
transition where I also met my
co-founders. And a long story short,
what we doing here, what I'm doing here
is we are combining many different
disciplines
to work on the energy transition. you
are like a innovating in a very mature
technology and you were mentioning
before recording the multi-disiplinary
>> of your team so how is composed or who
is doing this possible
>> and also with your background of
multimedia art and media culture
>> well the approach I have is
we as individuals we are not smarter
than others but we work together
differently so what we are doing is
we're bringing people from all different
disciplines and parts of life. For
example, we have people who come from
actually space engineering who
electrical engineering, software
engineering, mechanical engineering,
real estate, software development,
legal so all those people on
eye level in the same room talking about
the problem we want to solve and that
changes a lot. And when we need an
answer, usually we don't have to wait
months. We have it usually within a day.
And that makes us much more agile. And
it's also much more fun to work
>> when you do it that way.
>> So which problem would you say that you
are solving? Like in a summary is to
decarbonize all buildings in cities as
Vienna like old cities.
>> Yeah.
>> For every city in the world. well
we're focusing much on Europe because
the problems that we are having are very
unique for Europe because we just we
cannot and don't want not just to rip
down our buildings
>> and build everything new and also when
we build something new we usually build
it for generations and that changes a
lot how systems are built. So we
don't have those normal AC
devices like in for example North
American cities. But getting back to
your question, so
we are solving the problem wherever
traditional
air heat pumps don't work for whatever
reason or people don't want them. This
is where we have a solution and the
reasons can be very different. The
solutions usually are in the cities
people silent solutions are not good
enough. They need noiseless solutions or
in the cities usually you don't have
even the space for the performance you
need that you can actually generate
enough power that needs hybrid sources.
in buildings you have very
fragmented systems with decentralized
gas heaters and sometimes centralized
ones, oil heaters and you don't want to
have a complicated fragmented system.
And we built a thermal system that
solves all these problems in a very
simple homogeneous system with
standard product. So our I'd say promise
to big real estate owners when you can
do and want to do a traditional air to
source heat pump do it. But for
everything else we most likely have the
most economical solution. We went
one step ahead but just coming back
also because you have a lot of
digital background and the work
that you're doing is it's like the
mix between the software and the
hardware. How was the this whole journey
and what was the switch back to hardware
stuff that you're doing? When I worked
in construction engineering, the
frustrating part was that everything is
so slow
>> and it has a lot of like everything has
a lot of frictions, permissions, people,
everything has a lot of friction.
And in software, I learned the
importance of convenience, user
experience,
and how to reduce friction. And
this experience
we brought back into the thinking how to
build something for real estate because
it's not a base principle of physics
that things has to be slow in this area.
It's it's more a result of things have
evolved with this product thinking we
made things much cheaper and much faster
and the software thinking is what
enables this. So just as an example,
plug in like the terms like plugand
play even that people talk about
something like user experience that is
unheard of usually in real estate.
that we use pref fabricated products
instead of building stuff on site.
That is also pretty new and that we
don't take things for granted like
that people let's say heat pumps or
airsource heat pumps are allowed or even
say there always have to be a
ventilator in there like
>> why like physics don't say that they
have to be a ventilator in there.
reasons why they're in there, good
reasons, but we can question
the reasons behind it and that's what we
did.
>> Right. So, how do you solve this no
ventilation
system?
>> Well, in our case, so when airsource the
problem is usually nobody who lives in a
city wants to have an active ventilator
in front of the sleeping room for
example. Yeah.
>> So, the problem is not that they have a
device somewhere. The problem is that
they have a device even if it's small
one that makes a noise or rotates or
whatever. So what we figured out is that
a little a bigger size is not the main
problem. The problem is that it moves
and we solved it in a way that we say
these are very low tech modular
components that we can spread out over
the building a bit more. If we have if
we can put a box somewhere like you see
in the back here then we usually put a
box somewhere. If we can put it below
the solar panels, we put it below the
solar panels. If we can put it in a
wall, we can put it in a wall. Usually,
we find enough space, especially in
combination with a little bit of
geothermal, that we can cover everything
the building needs with this passive
absorbers. And the result is that it's a
extremely resilient system that lives
for a very long time. So, the ambient
source part lives much much much longer
than heat pumps and it's noiseless. How
long does they last just to know?
>> Well, the infrastructure part, the
geothermal part with the passive
absorbers probably somewhere between 50
and 100 years.
>> Oh.
>> so that lives very long. And the
heat pump itself is actually the thing
that probably lives so we talking
about Brian to water heat pumps. They
probably live somewhere between 25 to 35
years.
>> Looking at when you were giving us a
tour, it's all shaped and sized. So you
can tailor it how how big. So you can
actually tailor it to the requirement of
any building.
>> Yes. Yes. But it's all based on standard
components. It's just a handful of
components. they're all
standardized.
>> And also just when we were just
reading about what you're doing at Ruth
Energy, we see that there's also a bit
of technician shortage problem as
well like going forward. And if you can
just tell us like doing this kind of
installation how much manh hour that
you're saving.
>> Yeah, the I think the important part
is like who here who is who is the
user and we have actually three users.
we have the landlord. I would say
this is the economical user. So this is
the one who is making the usually the
buying decision.
>> Then we have the installers who are the
technical users. For them it has to be
easy. And then we have the tenants
who live somewhere. Those are the one
who are having the user experience of
of living.
>> So the advantage for the landlord is
that they're probably they're saving
compared to conventional solutions
roughly 40%.
>>.
>> So those tech rooms and I'm really
talking about focused on the tech rooms
they cost depending on the building size
somewhere between 50 to€100, 000
and there we are reducing roughly 30% of
the cost and it's like fixed
For the installers, the only thing
they have to do is two pipes.
>>.
>> Flow and return, a land cable and
electricity and that's it.
>> So it's very easy and so that means
the commissioning of the device when we
bring the device the roots hub this is
our core product is usually done in a
day. So the only thing the installer has
to do is the water pipes through the
building. so every installer who can
do water pipes can do the system and
then we have the users so the
tenants for them usually nothing should
change whatever experience they had
before is the experience they should
have afterwards with the exception that
they can upgrade to cooling if they want
so they can have some yeah they can have
cooling in their building.
>> Nice. you were mentioning how much
effort you have put in making this
root have super easy to install.
>> Yeah.
>> And in energy transition we have seen
some reports that the skills for people
to work in energy are short are getting.
>> So how have been your experience with
regular installers? What do you need to
be an of these heat pumps for example?
The installers know need no special
education. So when they know how to make
water pipes, they can know how to
install the system because everything
they're getting is a little console that
is pre-made.
>>.
>> Where they attach the pipes to and we
bring our device afterwards.
So they don't even see the device
and everything else we do
remotely. So that we are also we also
we're just filling the brine into
the pipe stem
>> and then we activate it remotely.
>> So that's also makes make it makes it
much cheaper, right? Like
>> Yeah, it is much cheaper. The quality
assurance is completely there. We can
monitor everything. We can fix almost
everything remotely. And since the
inertia of a building is very long when
we encounter that problem, we know it
usually
a long time before the people in the
building already realize it.
>> So, obviously we where you
build things things can break and
whenever that happened we already had
the technicians on site before the
people in the building called us and
said somebody's already fixing
it.
>> Great. So you have here you are building
the hardware the this solution like plug
and play solution but also the software
the software during the operation.
So the user can watching the phone kind
of how we
>> no we one of the biggest questions of
real estate owners is like who takes
over responsibility of the system
afterwards and we want to take the
responsibility afterwards. So that is
very unique to us like most people who
build this they want to have somebody
else then be responsible for it in
operations but no we ship this thing
so we can take over the responsibility
afterwards and yeah we have everything
in house needed for it. So for
example if an energy provider or if a
real estate management company is
actually the legal operator of the
system we are we are actually doing
like everything in the background that
is needed.
>> Okay. And how many users do you have now
and how much do you expect how many?
>> Well the thing is we are going
into the scaling phase right now. So
that means in Vienna we have right
now I think by the end of summer
seven bigger buildings in operations
and we will go into the scaling phase
in 2027
or next year and then we ramp up
production go to Germany and go to other
cities
>> the whole design it's also modular
and peace and quiet so how much of that
because Vienna is very dense ly in the a
lot of the buildings are made let's
say there there are heritage
buildings and it's the similar problem
throughout Europe. So how much of the
design is because of considering
that it's going to be in the dense area
and it has to be quiet and peace and
within the regulatory norm that was I'd
say probably the core design principle
even what our hypothesis was if we
manage to solve the problem in the
densest areas with decentralized gas
heaters it's much easier than to
actually go further to the easier cases,
central heings, also new buildings,
which we're also doing. But if you only
solve the easy problems, then for those
people, it's much harder to go into the
difficult ones. So what I'm trying to
say is the modules we designed solve the
most difficult of the problems. And now
it's easy for us through the modularity
of the system to also cover all the
other cases., so we can our heat pump
modules we can simply cascade to bigger
systems..
>> Our thermal system doesn't care if it's
a tiny or a small building or if it's a
it's a huge district. it really
doesn't care
>> and so we can cover pretty much
everything. Now
>> you talked about the modular system in
cascading and I had the question as
well while I was thinking that a
single modular hub how much can it
handle and how many multiple units can
it handle and what will be the output of
it? Yeah, the so the modularity
itself is within the architecture of the
hub. So we are in the hub itself we are
not stacking different boxes
>> and right now it goes up to 500
kilow.
>> So the smallest is somewhere depending a
little on the building between like 20
or 40 kilow and it goes up to 500 and
but I think in the long term we want to
do more too. Yeah, because the solution
that we just saw in the tour, it's you
can have one solution even for two
buildings. So, yeah. Yeah. Multiple
buildings. Yeah. Yeah. We doing one for
four buildings now. and we actually
designing one well, we'll see if it
really happens for much more
buildings.
>> So,
>> I just have a different question. How
much of that is also permitting when
you have like four build four buildings
using one cascading effect?
>> Yeah,
>> it's it's important right like when when
you have like four buildings and them
using one single resource to is there
any permitting bottleneck as well there?
>> No, not really.
>> No. Okay.
>> No. The and I think the important
part is also when you talk about
cascading so this always refers to the
heat pump. When we talk about the energy
source, the ambient source, an ambient
source itself has no heat pump. The
ambient source means it the energy from
the air, the energy from the ground,
whatever. The heat pump is what makes it
usable. And the heat pump doesn't care
if it's in one central place, if it's in
every building or in every apartment. So
that really depends from case to case
where it's the smartest to put it.
How does your solution maintain the cop
when you have this lowgrade
like temperature inside but you need
more heat?
>> How do you keep the COP?
>> When you talk about heat pumps, you
usually talk about the seasonal
performance factor. So you look like the
COP looks at one specific moment in time
from source to how much heat
output you generate. So it's not the
same cop for winter and summer.
>> No, no. And that's why you usually look
at the season performance factor
which is in Germanal
>> and that is the important part and
that means you need a really stable
average between what temperatures you
have in winter, in autumn and in summer
for cooling too. And so a long story
short the most modern heat pumps
right now even with only air source are
so efficient that they're so far away
from what we have in fossils that it's
not even an issue for people
anymore.
>> Okay.
>> And the systems we have especially like
when we use only air source it's just
like it's it's just as efficient as a
normal airsource heat pump. So you
know we have no magic wand to make this
better.
>> 2.5 three. No it's better. It's much
better. No, no, it's it's it's like that
this these are numbers when you in
older systems when they are not well
done. when you when you for example
these are numbers that you get usually
when you retrofit a decentralized gas
heater with a centralized heat pump only
airsource then you're getting this kind
of numbers.
>> Okay.
>> but you if you do it a little smarter
then you're getting much better
numbers. you get rather something.
I'd say we don't have a system right now
that is worse than four. so
>> that is that is that is really the worst
we're doing right now and when you
have a hybrid source that you have a
little bit of ge geothermal in it then
it gets better and better and there
is not even factored in that you have
with the ge little bit of geothermal
free cooling. So cooling is pretty much
for free. you have high COP more than
four you have
>> cheap installation and like let's
say capex
>> yeah capex
>> so
what is the payback that you are seeing
in your with your solutions in the
current situation energy situation here
in Europe
>> pardon me the like in years
payback of the system itself oh okay
okay so I think the important part is
that people who are retrofitting to this
kind of system they're not looking at
payback they are looking at my system
is end of life
>> and do I really want to spend
€100, 000€200, 000
>> for an old system that means their u
calculations in terms of payback
>> starts after those expenses they would
have for a fossil system and it is still
more expensive than a fossil system but
not so much that this is a real issue.
The important part in the energy
transition right now is nobody replaces
a completely fine fossil system. You
have to get those people who are having
fossil systems end of life and you have
to prevent that those are switching the
fossil systems with the fossil system
again
>> and that's your target.
>> Yeah, that's that's our that's our main
audience. That's our main audience and
for them the economics are already so
much on the side of the renewables
>> that is not a real issue and every
fossil system has a lifespan from
maximum of 30 years. That means to
achieve our goals it's enough to get
those where the system is end of life.
If we manage that nobody
>> who has an end of life fossil system
goes back to a fossil system then the
energy transition will be fine. The
problem right now is that it's super
easy for people to renew the fossil
system. There are no there's no
regulatory friction whatsoever and so
on. And for people who are building
renewables
they still have the friction in
terms of regulatory in term even though
it's the safer system the better system
the more desirable system the
very regulatory pattern especially a
very complicated grant system it
doesn't help.
>> Yeah. But this is the situation here
in Vienna. But how do you see the rest
of Europe? So my main
knowledge is about Austria and Germany
too and especially for the big real
estate holders who are looking more at
at the on a European level. So big
institutional owners they switch
renewables anyhow because they're
looking at ESG criteria
>> and they don't want to have stranded
assets based on fossils. So for them
they already they're already moving.
They're already looking for solutions on
how to get on to renewables. For them
it's more like who are the ri reliable
players who have the scalable systems
and who have the systems that can be
managed. If you look at on a on a more
individual level that means
association ownerships
there it's getting really complicated
and if you look at the dense cities and
actually this is also pretty much the
same in all the European cities the
the regulatory part is very
complicated because everything that is
new has very has many different people
who are respons responsible for this and
as long as they don't talk internally it
still remains complicated. Vienna is at
the forefront of this I guess and they
they it has been really a good
journey with them talking about this but
still a hell of a lot of work to even
even with people who really want to make
this happen and work hard on it. still a
lot of work
>> and also Geralt if you can touch upon
the scale of the problem just counting
the buildings the old buildings
which is reaching its end of life
cycle how big is the market for within
Austria within Europe
>> yeah so in like the kind of buildings
we are looking at in Europe there are no
reliable stats because some cities
don't count it but it's a couple of
million buildings
>> so it's really a lot. And I'm not
talking about small houses. I'm talking
really about condominiums. So
bigger buildings, multi multi-story
buildings. And
the potential is massive. Which which
one would you say that is the biggest
bottleneck the physical installation in
the building of the resistant of the
people to change the system to a new
technology? when the product is there
and when it's affordable enough the
people most of the people are much
further than most people think. So in
the buildings we see that you will
always have a handful of people in every
buildings who are against this but the
majority
wants to have the better system period.
>> that's it
>> cost effective.
>> Yeah. So the people are not the
problem. The problem is cost and
regulatory and I would say half a
problem is the grand system. So cost is
something we want to solve and can
solve. So the economy of scale is on our
side and our systems will get cheaper
over time and I think we ultimately will
be able to solve most of this problem.
Like all the regulatory effort is now on
those who want to do renewables and it
would have to be the other rounds. The
regulatory effort would have to be on
those on the side of those people who
want to renew fossils.
>> You I think you should have to do some
explaining if you want to burn something
in your house again. or if if if you
have no good reason to go on fossils
again. so the regulatory part goes
much further than what I what I said
here. But it's it's a lot of homework
needs to be done here and the grant
system is
counterproductive in many ways because
it's way too complicated. It add so much
friction into the projects. So I'd much
rather have very low grants that are
very easy to understand and get
>> instead of what we have right now. so
yeah the
grant systems the unreliable grant
system especially the federal ones are
part of the problem. And in terms
of regulation, what is easier to
install? The individual solution of the
multi-
apartment like a building or a or an
apartment. Which one is easier? Well, it
always depends what you had before.
>> The I think when you retrofit, you
always have to look at what did you
have? And
the core design principle is that we
have to preserve ownership structure. So
that means when you have a decentralized
gas heater that means the ownership of
the heating was in the apartment.
>> If you had a central heating system
system the ownership of the
heating itself is either in the
association ownership or of the real
estate owner the landlord and that means
the change needs to happen there. so
the easiest is wherever the heater was
before you have it afterwards. And this
is more of the enabler or or the or
the energy consumption. So do you when
you prescribe something if it should be
a centralized system or a decentralized
system.
>> So you look at what was there before
>> building cost. It's like they're like
it's always building cost. So what
people like in terms of operating costs
the main question is always is it
cheaper than was before? And this is
really easy to achieve. And then it's
always like, how much does it cost to
actually get this done? Because
renewable systems, even though we make
it much cheaper, it's still expensive.
It's still a lot of money.
>>
>> but it pays off
>> economically and environmentally.
>> Yes. It pays off, but again,
it depends.
When the existing systems are end of
life, it pays off.
>> Oh, yeah.
>> if you have a perfectly working
fossil system
>> Yeah. about that
>> then you have to wait until also the
system is end of life and then it pays
off.
>> Okay. And also in terms of sources for
the heat pump, you have here the
geothermal
>> solution. You mentioned that you can
take any source.
>> but in geothermal in particular,
how was the permitting process and the
logistic be behind
>> in Vienna especially in Vienna
especially getting the permits for
geothermal is pretty frictionless.,
so no matter if you do it like we did in
our inner yard or if you do it on public
ground, that's pretty easy.,
being able to make B holes, on the
sidewalks, for example, is key for the
energy transition and Vienna realized
that and to have a standardized process
for that is key. So other European
cities have to follow if they want to
have the energy transition.
>> So Austria is the only one. I'm not
sure if it's the only one, but it's at
least the only one I know of that has a
standardized process for this.
>> Okay. Up to
>> And you could tell us again how much
you had to drill here.
>> for this building, wait. Well, this
is a this is a science building. So we
having six B holes, but I guess probably
for the way this building is made,
probably one or two would have been
enough. So for most of the buildings
typically VNS buildings we do for the
hybrid sources we do like four B holes
are enough.
>>.
>> And well we can also do airsource.
so we the b holes simply make the
best mix between reliability and cost
and efficiency. But in most of the
cases we have roughly four b holes and
they can be done on the sidewalk. And
and how deep are the bore holes
>> in most of the cases? Somewhere between
100 and 150 m.
>> And which technology did you use in
this time? Because of the logistic I'm
thinking in the machinery how to make
the
>> Yeah, there's just one you have a
huge drilling machine that comes.
>> Okay.
>> And puts a hole in the ground,
>> a tiny one. so it's not it's it's
it's not a it's not a it's not a it's
not a big hole. The machine is big, but
the hole is tiny.
>> Okay. And for each system you need one
bore hole or more than one because here
you have six just for R&D.
>> yes purpose right but in a
regular system you
>> yeah in a regular system is most of
the cases it's somewhere around four.
When the building is bigger it's six
seven eight. So it really depends but if
you look at the typical traditional
vianese building what we see most of the
cases right now is four five bore holes.
>>.
>> Yeah. And now Geralt coming to you
have a background of design and
communication and we see do you fe
feel that people fear heat pump or
there's a bit of communication problem
as well while we go forward in energy
transition people we need to
communicate differently to make it
enabler for people to use different
stuff and use something which is more
forward
>> I'm taking right now the political
aspect out of the equation And so now I
can I can address that afterwards. so
when it comes to heat pump, people feel
the noise. They don't feel the heat pump
itself.
>> So many people know these new devices
next to small houses they're making
noises. So this is what they fear. And
if you take this fear out of the
equation because there is nothing moving
anymore in the ambient source then
what we saw is that the fear is gone.
>> People are fine with it
>> and
that is really important. Technicians
tend to talk about efficiency all the
time and that is obviously important
when you do the things but most people
really don't care so much about this.
They really just want to know is it is
it cheaper than what I had before and
then how loud is it?
>> And so this is this is one part of the
fear of heat pumps. And the other part
is probably that you mentioned is the
political one.
>> Mh. To be honest, I think that will just
fade because at the end you have a
superior system on almost every level
and there are some political lobbies
who spread a lot of misinformation
but this is just
I think it's impossible to win this game
for them. They will just they will just
extend the timeline for the transition.
they make they will make it for many
companies hard but physics and economics
are so hard on the side of heat pumps I
think this cannot be won and I
think if you make I think if you make
heat pumps a non-issue and really boring
I think then people will calm down and
see oh gosh I can save a lot of money
with this I can have cooling with this
do we really want to depend on
on Russian gas or or even US gas.
>> probably not not really. And
>> yeah, I it you're addressing
one of the hottest topic which is
decarbonized heating heat and cooling
which we're going to address in our
forum in June as well.
>> And actually is soda hot topic right now
that there is a I don't know if it's
global conference in Vienna in May
this year.
>> Yeah.
Are you attending? I suppose
>> most likely.
>> Yeah. Yeah, you should.
>> We are going to be there maybe making
some interviews.
>> There might there might be a visit in
our house from from the people.
>> Oh, amazing.
>> Great. And we were talking about that
you are building a hardware and here in
Europe it's this new wave of
reindustrialization for with the new
companies we which are innovating. How
how do you see the future of root
energy in terms of manufacturing? Do you
want to keep it in Europe or you are
going to outsource?
>> So we want to keep everything
in Europe. So that is that is that is
clear. So whatever can be done here we
will do here. if it cannot be done
here then obviously we are pragmatic
then we will look outside too. But as
far as we know right now most of or it
or everything can be done in Europe too.
important part is software and hardware
is today one thing. So if you really
care about the software you really
most of the cases when you do something
new you need to build the hardware too
and that is actually our own motiv
motivation. We know what the energy
transition needs in terms of software in
terms of intelligence
that it also really fits into the
energy system. We need this piece of
hardware that can do it all,
>> that can be can monitored, that can
be upgraded, that have
state-of-the-art security
>> that can be extended., so that is
the main reason why we are building our
own hardware.
>>.
>> And since energy
right now in Europe has a lot to do with
autonomy and resilience, it makes
a lot of sense for us to build
everything here.
>> In the last question, you said you will
leave the politics aside. Let's let's
bring it in. And if you have to change
any regulation
>> Yeah. going forward and you think
that it can actually yeah make it
light speed to do the urban
decarbonization what will that be one
regulation that you can change
>> I would say those who have a fossil
system end of life and want to renew it
with the fossil fossil system they
should go through an approval process
the renewables should considered as
state-of-the-art
>> now it's mainstream like
>> yeah the mainstream and the
state-of-the-art should be the
renewables
>>. And when you do the renewables, you
should have a very easy if no approval
process. And if you renew a fossil
system, those people should have the
regulatory barriers.
>> Okay,
>> this is it is it is the much more
dangerous system. It is the system that
harms us in our autonomy autonomy
and politically. It is more expensive
and it harms the environment. So why is
it so easy for them?, and so it
should be the other way around. And I
think it doesn't even have to be a law.
I think it's it's I think it's probably
enough that it's just an
investigation. So like you renew a
fossil system and you automatically
trigger a investigation very explain why
that happens. And if you have good
reasons, then keep your fossil system.
but if there are no good reasons and
I probably think there's probably 90%
who won't have good reasons
>> then take any kind of renewable.
>> Yeah. also is a challenge of how to
communicate it right that's why you are
doing a great job and that's why we are
doing this because it has to be
communicated
>> and I want to ask you one more
thing and we asked Angelus from
infrared earlier you're doing a
great job like making energy
efficient the old all being old
buildings why all the new energy
efficient buildings are looking similar
or
well, this is this is probably more
to do with building culture than with
the energy systems. Right now, it's the
cheapest
to build buildings just with
using concrete.
>>.
>> And put a few windows in.
>>.
>> And that ends up with every
building looking the same. And then
most buildings are designed with
standard building information
modeling software which also use the
same components and so on. so yeah
that's why everything looks so similar.
older buildings it was more
handcrafted obviously much more
expensive.
That is this is a main reason why
they look different and at the end the
the way the economics work today
>>., yeah, make it make it hard to
to build something that is very
good-looking and economically at the
same time. Yeah, we tried hard that our
building is like not so much the same as
others., but for sure it's not.
>> Thank you., but it takes a lot of
laugh into the details that you can do
that. Before going to the last
session for fire round, what was the
spark for you to move from health and
digital solutions to a physical
work like to build something?
>> Yeah. So, you mentioned my my former
company my sugar that I co-founded
>> that was for diabetes. Yeah. Something.
>> Yeah. Right. We built a diabetes
management platform that at the end
pretty much had the digital
pancreas on your smartphone. That means
from automatic
>> measurement of your blood sugar to
injecting your insulin in a device
and today the company serving 6 million
diabetics.
>> Wow.
>> so it was an exciting journey. The
health tech was probably the curiosity
curiosity in my in my resume because
I've always been fascinated by the
intersection of technology and design
>> and we started the company officially
in 2009 and the iPhone was introduced
2007 the app store in 2009. So we were
really early and
>> and to me it was really clear this this
little device will be the door to the
world and my co-founders lived with
diabetes
>> and I think you should always solve the
problems that are next to you and are
close to you
>> and so we really thought we can make
an impact and that's what we did. So we
had like no formal knowledge on how to
build a company and yeah and at the
end it was like 200 people from 42
nations all over the world in the middle
of Vienna.
>> And what is now the status of the
>> still the same? Yeah. Yeah. Still the
same.
>> They're still running.
>> Yeah. Still running.
>> And what was the spark to change to this
energy world?
>> Yeah. from a for me it was clear I
don't live with diabetes like when we
sold the company and as soon as you give
the main strategy out of your hands and
especially when I don't live with the
problem that my journey at some point
will be over
>> and I've always been motivated to do
something physical too so I always I
always wanted to bring the digital
experience into the into the physical
world which actually at the end we also
did with my sugar. So we integrated a
lot of hardware
>> medical hardware which I found
actually very exciting
>> and that's what we what's happening here
too and it's a very it's it's a it's
it's a hard journey but really designing
this device that runs the software we
need and the intersection of all the
disciplines you need this is what makes
it unique this is what enables us to
solve problems that others cannot as
I said we are not smarter than others we
are just talking in a different way.
>> Yeah. So, you are the iPhone of heat
pumps.
We'll see. Nice.
>> Getting to the quick fire round
to towards the end of our our
interview. What do you think that
going to solve the energy crisis? The
design part or or the or the engineering
part?, it's part of it's the
same. Well, the engineering part
solves the solves the physics. So, it is
obviously important and the design part
solves mainly the adoption
and I think you need both. You cannot
live without the physics but you cannot
live without the adoption. So, you need
both
>> and now in the imaginary world you
get 1 billion euros
for the company not for yourself.
What what would you do to accelerate
any transition or to foster new
technology? What would be the point to
to invest?
>> Yeah, we'd ramp up serial production
and launch 10 cities at the same time.
>> Yeah. And it's it's also again a
design question. You think that one
giant heat pump or 100 small ones
>> in the urban context? usually small and
modular winds for huge district heating.
>>.
>> Usually the big wins
>> regarding the this face out gas I
don't know in German is gas oustic.
>>.
>> What would you say that is the most
misunderstood aspect of this program
>> that it's been done before? Vienna
already had energy transition a very
successful one.
>> Which one? Vienna was like all over
the city. Vienna is a very old city and
it has been it used to be bigger
than is now. where Rahul always is
like now this is a new city
>> India
>> and
Vienna used to be on decentralized coil
and oil and that's not long ago that's
even my co-founder lived in a in an
apartment with decentralized oil where
everybody had like in their apartments
all these oil canisters and so on
>> and it was a first it was a problem with
the air pollution in the city. Second,
the problem was the convenience was off
the chart. It was is like like having
this in your apartment is like terrible.
It smells bad. It's a lot of work.
And the third part and that actually
what triggered it is the cost of oil
went up., there was in the in
the end of the 70s the Yam Kipur war. So
very similar to the one in Israel today,
the Yaboo.
>> right. And Vienna decided to
go to gas because if you take the CO2
out of the equation, it's actually very
clean solution.
>> Yeah.
>> And
>> cleaner but it's still
everything.
>> Yeah. And they implemented a strategy
that was so successful that without
forcing anybody like within one
generation
Vienna was pretty much off oil and
and coal. And it's been done before and
it is pretty much the same strategy we
are doing. So respect the ownership
structure. Wherever your heating was
before it will be afterwards. No matter
if it's central or decentral you bring
the infrastructure part. So in back then
it was the energy source gas. Now it's
ambient heat source right to the
apartment and then everybody decides for
themselves when they want to switch.
>> Yeah. And also the technology changed
because the gas boilers were not back in
the time there you changed to gas and
now you are electrifying.
>> Yeah. Yeah. Clo the yeah sure the
technology is a different one now.
>> but the principles are the same.
>> Nice.
>> So the and the added convenience is
very important. Back then the added
convenience was you don't have to
carry your oil canisters anymore and it
doesn't smell bad anymore. Today the
added convenience is lower cost plus
cooling.
>> And Geralt you have been a serial
entrepreneur. You have been into
entrepreneurship from 2009. What will be
your advice for the young founders in
Austria and throughout Europe?
>> Oh the
>> especially now.
>> Yeah. No, it's it's one of the most
excit for young people. I think it's one
of the most exciting times ever. it's
the whole world is reshaping. like
the not just the energy space is
reshaping obviously AI and aentic
development agentic programming is
changing if you're flexible in your mind
and absorb all these new opportunities.
I'd say I think the most important
advice I probably can can give is look
at two aspects like
what is changing and what will remain. I
think that is important that like I
think the elephant in the room that
is changing is obviously AI but what
will remain and I think remaining
will be the need for cheap energy for
cheap heating and cooling people in very
special in Europe is that people
don't want to rip down our buildings and
so on and if you look at those two
things
I think the combination is powerful
>> it has been a great conversation
thank you and maybe you want to make
some last statement or quoting to finish
the interview.
>> If you're doing something that doesn't
make the world better, quit your job and
get work on something get to work on
something really useful. For example,
the energy transition.
>> Hey, on that note, Carol, thank you
very much for giving your time and
especially the tour. It's been a
pleasure. Thank you.
>> Thank you very much. Thank you. And also
as usual, thanks to the community for
watching the episode and keep tuned for
our next interview.

From Gas to Grid: Reimagining Urban Heat in Europe | Modular Systems for Altbau |Roots Energy|S2E4

Noiseless Heat Sources Drive Adoption

Pre-fabricated Systems Reduce Installation Costs

Installer Skill Gap Addressed by Design

Regulatory Friction Impedes Transition Speed

Historical Precedent for Energy Transition