WAAK and NON.energy: Co-engineering heat pump skids

How can the installation of a heat pump be made simpler, more efficient and less prone to errors? The answer for Belgium-based company NON.energy lies in an intelligently designed, pre-assembled skid. Together with WAAK, which also takes care of assembling the skids, the original design was further refined and translated into an efficient production process, with every stage subject to thorough quality control. The result? A plug-and-play solution that can be delivered more quickly, easily and accurately, benefiting the end customer, the installer and NON.energy alike.

Heat pumps as a service

NON.energy, based in Deerlijk (Belgium), started out in 2024 as an installation company. However, it soon realised that people were more likely to have a heat pump installed if they could rent one rather than buy it. This led the company to develop the concept of heat pumps as a service, a form of operational leasing offered to private individuals and property developers.

For a fixed monthly fee, NON.energy installs a geothermal (ground-source) heat pump (from NIBE) at the customer's premises and also takes care of maintenance and any necessary repairs. A monitoring system keeps track of the heat pumps' performance 24/7 and makes adjustments whenever necessary. This means the end customer is completely taken care of. Since launching, the young company has installed 400 heat pumps, with a further 1,100 on order.

NON.energy: from installer to system provider

NON.energy focuses exclusively on the sales and R&D of heat pumps. For installation work, it relies on freelance installers. As finding skilled installers and technical staff became increasingly difficult, the risk of installation errors and subsequent repairs – resulting in additional costs – also increased. NON.energy therefore decided to fundamentally rethink its traditional installation model.

The company's co-CEOs, Bastiaan Benoit and Roel Vaneeckhout, came up with the idea of standardising the process by using a fixed skid: a frame into which the heat pump is integrated, with all the necessary pipework and fittings pre-installed. With this system, the installer simply needs to position the complete unit in the right place in the house or building and connect it. This not only makes the installation process faster and easier, but also reduces the risk of errors.

WAAK Metal Assembly as an outsourcing- and co-engineering partner 

As NON.energy does not have its own production facilities or employees to manufacture the skids, Bastiaan and Roel went looking for a partner with the necessary facilities and expertise to take on this work. They explored whether the social economy could offer a solution and identified WAAK as a potential partner.

They were already quite familiar with us, as we are located nearby. They knew, for example, that we have a metalworking and assembly department. During a visit to the department, they discovered an additional asset: WAAK's co-engineering department. At that stage, the skid design had not yet been fully finalised. Bastiaan and Roel saw WAAK's co-engineering team as a partner capable of further optimising their design and preparing it for production.

WAAK’s co-engineering team makes NON.energy's heat pump skid production-ready

Mindy Pauwaert, Product Development Manager at WAAK, fine-tuned NON.energy's design: "As a social enterprise, the first thing we always assess is whether a design can be manufactured by our employees. If it cannot be produced in its current form, we rethink it. We always take the impact on the customer into account: our modifications must improve the product without increasing its cost.

One good example is our proposal to replace the manual assembly of the original aluminium version with a steel structure made from cut-to-length profiles and assembled using robotic welding. This not only makes the work simpler and less complex for our employees, but also ensures greater process stability and significant cost savings for NON.energy.

The bent copper pipes in the original design also made assembly more difficult. We therefore proposed a design using straight pipes instead. This change simplifies assembly, while also reducing NON.energy's costs through lower copper consumption. In this way, we not only improved production efficiency but also created additional value for the customer."

Smart process division improves manufacturability and efficiency

The assembly process, which has been allocated its own dedicated area within WAAK's Metal Assembly department, was also optimised by dividing it into several sub-processes. The skid contains six pipes, each requiring fittings (connectors, valves, etc.) to be installed. This is done in advance during a pre-assembly stage, using specially designed assembly boards. There are 12 boards in total: a left-hand and a right-hand version for each pipe.

This division of tasks means that some employees focus exclusively on sealing threaded connections using hemp fibre and jointing compound, while others concentrate on correctly pressing the fittings into place using specialised tools of Viega. This approach breaks down complex technical tasks into a limited number of simpler, more manageable operations.

Integrated quality checks reduce the risk of errors

This way of working not only makes the tasks easier for our employees to understand and perform, but also allows us to integrate quality checks at several stages of the assembly process. Any errors can therefore be detected and corrected at an early stage, improving the overall quality of the finished product.

Once the pipes have been fully assembled, they are installed in the frame under supervision. Our employees also install the controller box, which monitors the system. The process concludes with a final inspection, during which the pipework is subjected to a pressure test to check for leaks. This allows NON.energy to ensure that every skid leaves WAAK leak-free and ready for delivery to the end customer.

NON.energy and WAAK: Creating added value at every level of the value chain

Bastiaan Benoit, co-CEO of NON.energy, is pleased with the outcome of the collaboration. In his view, everyone benefits from the partnership: "First and foremost, our customers, who receive a fully functioning product much faster. The solution also benefits installers, as the installation process has become simpler and more plug-and-play. Fewer installation errors mean fewer call-outs and repair jobs for us, resulting in lower costs and higher profits. Finally, the collaboration also creates employment opportunities for people working at WAAK Metal Assembly. We are very proud to be able to support the social economy in this way and create opportunities for people who have difficulties accessing the (regular) labour market."