Frost: Euro Fire Suppression Systems Market Shows Resilient Growth
May 23, 2008 // Published as a news service by IHS
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The European fire suppression systems market continues to expand, with sound underlying drivers ensuring its healthy growth well into the long term.
According to Frost & Sullivan, the market has benefited from a variety of factors including a move to more environmentally friendly solutions, a robust construction sector, Eastern Europe's growing national economies and a close association with significant industries.
Recent analysis from Frost & Sullivan of the European fire suppression systems market found earned revenues of $603.4 million in 2007, with estimates to reach $805.8 million in 2014.
"The two dominant drivers of the European fire suppression systems market are construction and industry investment," said Frost & Sullivan research analyst Niles Newberry.
"The growth of gas fire suppressing systems is closely linked to the increasing demand from industrial and ICT [information communication technology] applications.
"Examples of these growing applications include investment in LPG [liquefied petroleum gas] terminals, the protection of mobile phone masks and manufacturing process control systems."
Specific sectors of the construction industry generate more demand for fire suppressing systems than others. For example, very few fire suppression systems are installed in dwellings, despite the fact that residential construction and renovation accounted for 47.7% of the construction industries output in 2005, analysts said.
Instead, the most appropriate sectors of the construction industry are non-residential construction and renovation, which accounted for 31.1% of construction output in 2005. Analysts said the increasing construction of warehouses is particularly significant because of the strong growth and the common adoption of sprinkler systems.
Analysts said environmental concerns continue to be a key issue for the European market, particularly clean agent systems. Hydrofluorocarbon (HFC) compounds, which largely replaced halons, are now under scrutiny due to their extremely high global warming potential (GWP).
"While these gases were promoted as environmentally sound with no ozone-depleting potential, they are found to have a long atmospheric life and a very high GWP," said Newberry. "For example, HFC-227 has an atmospheric life of 31-42 years and GWP 3,500 times that of carbon dioxide [CO2] over a 100-year period."
While environmentally friendly alternatives are available, they remain considerably more expensive. Analysts said a fluorinated ketone has a similar effectiveness but is approximately 50% more expensive. Inert gas mixtures are less effective and require much more space. Hence, system manufacturers and agent producers are focusing on developing cost-effective environmental solutions.
Source: Frost & Sullivan.