Industrial steam technology specialist Skyven Technologies has announced its Arcturus industrial heat pump demonstration center has achieved a sustained coefficient of performance (COP) of 8.0.

The company, headquartered across Texas and Antwerp, commissioned the demonstration centre in Dallas in November 2025.

The centre had a COP of 6.5 at commissioning, which Skyven said at the time was eight times more efficient than natural gas boilers and six times more efficient than electric boilers and thermal energy storage.

In its latest update, Skyven says reaching the 8.0 COP milestone has been driven by refinements in design, controls and integration and makes the Arcturus about ten times more efficient than a conventional boiler.

The company explains that for customer deployments, it can tailor Arcturus’ performance to match site-specific operating conditions, optimizing COP and temperature lift. Arcturus produces lifts from 38°C up to 185°C, Skyven added, with corresponding COPs ranging from 8.0 to 2.0.

Arun Gupta, Founder and CEO of Skyven Technologies, told pv magazine the latest results are critically important for European manufacturers in particular, as they pay roughly four times more for steam than their American counterparts.

“At a COP of 8.0, Arcturus cuts their steam costs by 50% or more, while also reducing exposure to EU ETS allowance prices,” he explained.

Gupta added that under the EU ETS, industrial sites pay for every tonne of CO2 they emit generating steam in conventional boilers. “Arcturus generates the same steam without combustion, removing those tonnes from the site’s obligation and reducing cost exposure,” he continued. “This is increasingly critical as free allocations start to be phased out.”

He also said Skyven is typically able to save European manufacturers between €1 million ($1.16 million) and €5 million on steam in year one using its Energy-as-a-Service (EaaS) model. “These savings go straight to our customers’ bottom line,” Gupta told pv magazine.