Ecoline / Ecotech: Pioneering the flow: Shaping the future of district heating
As Ireland looks to district heating to tackle its urban carbon emissions, Italian pre-insulated pipe pioneers Ecoline and Ecotech bring nearly 50 years of regional expertise to the Irish market. Mauro Basilico and Andrea Ferrari speak with ROBBIE COUSINS about how the company’s dual-track approach to rigid and flexible piping can help the country avoid costly pitfalls, harness waste heat and future-proof emerging energy networks.
Driven by the push for greater energy efficiency, district heating is gaining traction as a solution option to help meet Ireland’s carbon reduction challenges.
Two interconnected Italian companies belonging to the same group, operating 20 km apart in Cremona and Mantova, in northern Italy, Ecoline and Ecotech, are looking to bring their experience of manufacturing and supplying rigid and flexible insulated pipework to ensure that Ireland avoids unnecessary pitfalls as the rollout of district heating networks gets off the ground in the coming years.
Ecoline
Ecoline, established in 1980, specialises in pre-insulated rigid steel pipes, while Ecotech, founded in 2015, focuses on flexible PE, PEX, and a unique Forte 16 polymer pipe solution for district heating networks and other heat delivery systems.
Forte 16 pipe has an operating temperature higher than standard polymer pipework, up to 115C, and has a higher operating pressure of up to 16 bar under certain conditions.
Ecoline provides full pre-insulated pipe system solutions for pre-insulated district energy piping networks, district cooling, industrial process piping, oil and gas applications and other renewable energy networks.
Ecotech
Ecotech delivers flexible insulated pipework used for small district heating networks, building connections, heat pump distribution, biomass heating, geothermal systems and district cooling.
Mauro Basilico explains that the group can deliver optimal hybrid solutions for customers when needed.
He comments, “Rather than merging, our companies purposely maintain specific expertise in their fields with dedicated teams. But they operate as a joint entity with the objective of delivering the best solution to the customer and not preferring one product line over the other, ie rigid versus flexible or vice versa. Depending on the urban layout and the technical requirements – temperature, pressure, diameters, etc – a project might require solely steel, exclusively flexible pipes or a hybrid layout combining both. By maintaining two specialised tracks, we can evaluate a project holistically and deliver the ideal solution without pushing a single product line.”
The economic realities of modern networks
Building a district heating network requires balancing environmental ideals with strict financial constraints.
Andrea Ferrari explains, “In northern Italy, where the annual heating season is relatively short, utilities accept a maximum break-even period of just seven years. Because heating demands are concentrated almost entirely in the northern regions and are virtually unnecessary south of Rome, optimisation is critical. Achieving a return on investment within this tight window requires intimate collaboration between manufacturers, designers and utility engineering offices.”
He adds that this economic landscape contrasts sharply with northern Europe and Scandinavia. “In those regions, lower average temperatures and prolonged heating seasons naturally yield much higher returns, allowing for longer amortisation timelines.”
A 50-year legacy of innovation
Northern Italy boasts a deep historical connection to district heating, pioneered by the city of Brescia, which introduced its first network in 1973. In those early days, workers manually insulated steel pipes directly on construction sites; pre-insulated technology did not emerge until the 1980s.
Today, the industry has come full circle, with companies like Ecoline and Ecotech actively replacing infrastructures that have run successfully for 40 to 50 years.
Mauro explains, “While Italy’s district heating national market coverage sits at a modest 4% to 5%, Ecoline and Ecotech dominate the domestic landscape with over 70% of the market share.
“Simultaneously, international expansion is accelerating. Exporting accounts for 20% of our business, and it is growing, with flexible pipe technology driving growth in France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, the UK and Ireland. This is due in no small part to the significantly lower transport costs for flexible pipe products over rigid pipe products.”
Roadmap for emerging markets: The Irish frontier
As Ireland begins to develop district heating infrastructure, comprehensive early-stage planning will be vital.
Ecoline and Ecotech have made significant inroads in the Irish market, notably supplying the Emmet Road housing project for the Dublin City Council—one of the country’s largest installations by pipe volume— alongside commercial rollouts like the internal flexible pipework in the Moxy Hotel, East Wall, Dublin, and an insulated pipe network for a private clinic.
Andrea offers this advice: “For countries establishing new networks, the path forward relies on three strategic pillars:
– “Securing political backing: Robust political support is essential to educate the public and dispel misconceptions regarding a loss of individual energy independence.
– “Comprehensive planning: Network rollouts should never be rushed. Strategic design should focus on hybrid networks that pair rigid and flexible pipes, integrated with modern alarm wire systems to pinpoint leakages instantly.
– “Harnessing waste heat: Layouts must be strategically mapped around existing, predictable waste energy sources, such as waste incinerators and data centres.”
Navigating the roadblocks
The environmental transition is not without friction. Replacing individual domestic oil or gas boilers with a central power plant outside city limits drastically improves urban air quality.
Mauro offers this final observation: “District heating shifts energy management away from traditional local service businesses and into the hands of major utilities. Replacing domestic burners with simple, low-maintenance heat exchangers makes sound, financial, as well as sustainable, sense. It frees up valuable space taken up by boilers and removes maintenance costs. But there will be resistance. As EU measures move us away from boilers to more sustainable heat sources, district heating is an ideal solution for densely populated and busy business districts as network starting points. It is for this reason that it should become part of the model in urban energy changes as a necessary evolution for the modern, climate-conscious city.”
In conclusion
As many of Europe’s leading cities – from the historic streets of Brescia to emerging networks in Dublin – look to decarbonise, the groundwork is literally being laid beneath our feet.
Ecoline’s and Ecotech’s pragmatic, dual-technology approach demonstrates that the future of urban heating relies not on a single silver bullet, but on adaptable, highly engineered solutions. While transitioning away from traditional domestic boilers will inevitably face resistance, the environmental and efficiency gains of district heating and other sustainable energy solutions are too significant to ignore.
Ultimately, the shift toward centralised, waste-heat-driven networks represents more than just a change in infrastructure; it is a fundamental reimagining of how we heat and protect our cities for generations to come.
The full Ecoline and Ecotech product ranges are distributed in Ireland by their official Irish agent Greentherm. To learn more, visit https://www.ecoline.it phone: 01 531 4781 or email info@greentherm.ie