Samsung Partners With UK Developer And Tech Company Etopia For Green Homes Push
UK residential developer and tech company Etopia has announced a partnership with electronics giant Samsung to create an initial 6,000 super eco-friendly modular homes in the UK over the next five years.
Under the partnership, Etopia will integrate Samsung’s heat pump technology for air cooling and water heating and cooling. It will result in traditional combustion boilers being replaced with energy-efficient hydro units. Additionally, the units can be connected to solar panels, saving energy through renewable sources.
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The two firms will also collaborate on new technology that will aim to further improve the energy efficiency of the homes Etopia builds.
The company has an initial scheme of 47 homes it is building in Corby in the Midlands, and it is in talks to acquire two new sites that will be the next stage of plans to build 6,000 homes in the UK over the next five years, all incorporating Samsung technology.
Etopia was started by 27-year-old Joseph Daniels, who left school with no formal educational qualifications, but taught himself disciplines from thermodynamics to electrical engineering to architecture, and has invented or co-invented technology that is now being put to use in the smart, energy-efficient modular homes his company is building from two factory sites in the UK.
The company’s backers include the Reuben Brothers and hedge fund grandee Lord Stanley Fink.
In an interview with Bisnow earlier this year, Daniels said he is trying to build the “Tesla of housing” and wants its homes to be better than net-zero carbon neutral.
To that end, the company this week also announced that an independent test found that its homes prevent 0.525 tonnes of CO2 being emitted into the atmosphere each year by feeding surplus energy back into the grid, rather than producing CO2 like most homes. This equates to 13.125 tonnes of CO2 removed from the atmosphere during the course of a 25-year mortgage. The average home emits 6 tonnes of CO2 each year.
The partnership with Samsung follows an announcement earlier this month that Etopia had bought self-build homes specialist Tribes Homes. The company has a factory in Devon capable of building 200 homes a year, which Etopia said would complement its own facility in Ellesmere Port capable of building 2,000 homes a year.
It said the acquisition could be the first in a series of smaller factories around the country, rather than having a single centralised facility.
“We have pioneered technologies across the construction, energy and Internet of Things industries to create the blueprint for the homes of the future, as we recognise that the climate change fight will need support from all sectors, and Samsung partnering with Etopia shows that big tech is taking the fight seriously,” Daniels said in a press release.
“At Samsung, we believe that innovation is only truly meaningful if it enables people to make progress in their lives,” Samsung Electronics UK & Ireland CEO and President Francis Chun said. “Across everything we do, our efforts aim to be in harmony with our planet, and this partnership sets out to do exactly that.”
