Factory Zero develops, produces and delivers smart, complete Net Zero Energy systems, working in close cooperation with innovative players in the building supply industry. The start-up has been established under the NWE interreg project E=0 and has now received its first large order from construction company Dura Vermeer. Factory Zero's recently developed energy and climate module called the iCEM has been chosen by Dura Vermeer for their project with housing corporation De Goede Woning in Zoetemeer. This project will see 120 houses renovated to Net Zero Energy levels.
Start-up Factory Zero develops net zero energy modules and the orders start rolling in!
Net Zero Energy for everyone
To make sure that everybody in the Netherlands will be able to afford a Net Zero Energy retrofit there are some hurdles that have to be overcome. One of the biggest challenges is to get the price of these refurbishments down to €45.000. This number represents the energy costs that would normally be spent on energy bills over 30 years (the life span of a house). To get the costs for these renovations down and the quality up, industrial scale solutions, innovation and smart thinking are necessary. Factory Zero is the first start-up that has successfully built an installation module that is not only smaller, better and smarter, it’s also cheaper and it looks great!
Complete Net Zero Energy make overs
Factory Zero is the first start-up ever that focuses entirely on industrial solutions for Net Zero Energy concepts. The team, consisting of Jan-Willem van de Groep, Desmond Hughes, Jasper van den Munckhof en Sjoerd Klijn Verlderman (all of whom were earlier involved in the organisation Stroomversnelling), works together with big industrial partners such as Mitsubishi, BASF and ABB. Besides the iCEM energy module, they are also working on the development of a complete roof and facade module. This means that they will soon be offering complete Net Zero Energy packages. In this way they are working to make Net Zero Energy make-overs affordable and easily accessible for anyone.
Elements that make life easy
When building Net Zero Energy houses the hardest and most expensive part is not the construction itself, rather it’s the installations and the construction elements. The production of construction elements is an area ripe for innovation and calls for new products that meet the complex needs of a Net Zero Energy retrofit while also being easily integrated into current building practices. Factory Zero has already developed one of such a product, which is making it easier for construction companies to choose for net zero energy, both in retrofits and in the construction of new buildings.
The client is always right
When it comes to the client, the ambition is high: to make net zero energy an appealing deal for homeowners too. In order to achieve this prices need to drop by at least 40 per cent. Therefore any new complex products need to be easy to applicable, produced at scale and with a modification factor as high as possible. In developing these products, the philosophy of Factory Zero is: the client is always right!