The Voice of Tony Gittings, Managing Director, Rinnai UK
The Voice spoke with Mr Tony Gittings, Managing Director, Rinnai UK to hear his thoughts and goals about the future of the LPG industry.
The Voice: Welcome to the WLPGA, Innovation is in the DNA of Rinnai UK, please can you take us through your latest innovations, your recent achievements and projects?
Tony Gittings: Rinnai utilises heating to provide society with a comfortable way of life. This is our corporate mission. For our customers, we offer lifestyles of comfort, safety, and peace of mind, and for the planet, we strive to reduce environmental impact as much as possible. Rinnai creates healthy and comfortable lifestyles.
The company manufactures on a global scale and operates in 55 countries worldwide.
We have almost 500 fully qualified engineering designers producing product of excellence. In the UK we are concentrated on the supply of hot water heating delivery units and systems to all market sectors, especially off-grid. Decarbonisation and the goal of NetZero is driving the market towards higher energy efficiencies on all appliances and systems.
We estimate that about 30% of our units installed are powered by LPG. We expect the number of off-grid sites using our gaseous water heaters and heat pumps to increase. However, we believe that the practical, economic, and technical factors and considerations are the starting points for supplying fuel and appliances to any off-grid site.
Our units are hydrogen 20% blends ready, but the biggest single innovation recently is that we have produced the world’s first 100% hydrogen continuous flow water heater. We expect to follow this up with an rDME variant soon.
The Voice: What can we expect from Rinnai UK in the near future?
Tony Gittings: Towards the end of a centennial year, we created and implemented our NEW ERA plan. This plan consisted of a deep dive into global macro environment issues. The resultant outputs of this review will see Rinnai introduce an array of environmental care initiatives across our global operations with the aim of achieving carbon neutrality by 2050. On a more sector specific level this will see the introduction of appliances that are capable of combusting on the gaseous fuels of the future, and we are in advance development stages regarding blended and 100% RDME water heaters.
The Voice: How does Rinnai UK see the renewable products in the LPG industry, renewable LPG, renewable DME?
Tony Gittings: There is a requirement for practical, technically, and economically feasible solutions within the UK, EU, and global estate of rural properties. These three critical factors will make up a “Just” transition for all.
When considering the need for practical, economically, and technically feasible energy and power solutions supported by appropriate products it becomes apparent that a drop-in, phased, minimum disruption, instant heat approach to hot water services is a prerequisite for societal needs. The LPG industry can kickstart a transition from OIL, LPG, blended LPG and RDME to 100% renewable liquid fuels and have a crucial role to play in the decarbonisation of global rural estates.
The Voice: As a WLPGA member, what are your hopes and goals for the WLPGA moving forward?
Tony Gittings: Rinnai UK joined the WLPGA independently from the wider Rinnai group in 2022, the reason for this was due to the speed of decarbonisation in the UK and EU outpacing that in other global regions. We therefore joined and play an active role in WS1 and WS4 with a view of supporting and understanding the impacts of renewable liquid fuels on downstream equipment.
Since 2022, we have seen exciting advances in the areas mentioned above and we hope this continues as it supports our bold goals and ambitions to equipment to market products that combust on the gaseous fuels of the future.
creating a healthier way of living
