Brussels, 14 February 2024
Heat pumps need action
Heat pumps are a key technology for reaching the EU climate objectives and decarbonising
buildings. Whether electric, hybrid or thermally driven heat pumps, they are designed to fit the
variety of building types across Europe. In the current legislature, the EU has recognized their
role and attempted to create favourable regulatory conditions for their market uptake. These
include strategic REPowerEU objectives, which were set in 2022 and aim at doubling the
deployment rate of hydronic heat pumps resulting in 10 million and 30 million additional
hydronic heat pumps by 2027 and 2030, respectively. This means 2 million additional heat
pumps installed every year.
However, the reality is different: despite a market growth in the previous two years, consumer
demand for heat pumps is now closer to 1 million a year. Therefore, Europe is not on track to
achieve REPowerEU 2030 targets.
What is more, today the European Commission recommends a 2040 Climate Target of 90%
greenhouse gas emissions reduction. This is only feasible if these REPowerEU targets
become a reality and each and every household in Europe is able to contribute to the energy
transition and install technologies such as heat pumps. This translates into the need to work
on making the Green Deal also a good deal for all consumers, delivering finally on the social
dimension of the transition.
The heating industry is contributing to reaching the EU targets by investing massively in
manufacturing capacity and research and development to produce more heat pumps in
Europe that are adapted to its diversity of buildings and environment; and by training more
professionals to install them in European homes. In brief: there are no supply bottlenecks to
make the EU targets reality.
The main reason for the stagnation in heat pump sales are the many remaining barriers for
their deployment, such as: the upfront investments required for a heat pump installation,
which is even more difficult to meet by consumers in a severe macro-economic situation; the
“stop-and-go” practice for incentives across Europe, causing confusion for consumers; the
relatively high price of electricity in some countries when compared to the price of other
energy vectors, which makes customers’ payback of the investment longer; the shortage of
skilled installers; the weakness of the electricity grid in some regions of Europe. And lately, the
polarization of the political debate around the energy transition, which politicizes
technologies, erodes confidence and slows down the market. Finally, low consumer
awareness is still an issue, leading to a low replacement rate of old and inefficient heaters
with modern ones. Some of these barriers are country-specific, some apply Europe-wide,
some are structural, some have emerged in the past months.
We have been highlighting these as barriers to the mass heat pumps deployment for a long
time. Going forward, we think that a plan which does not address them will not be effective.
This is why we would like to suggest 10 actions, some of which can be taken at European level
and others which we encourage the EU Commission to raise with EU member states in the
framework of the National Energy and Climate Plans: