REPowerEU: 2x heat pump sales also requires a “Heat Pump Accelerator”

In 2015, the European Heat Pump Association (EHPA) stated that 54 million heat pumps could significantly reduce Europe’s energy dependency on fossil fuels in the Heating sector.

In 2020, the EU Strategy for Energy System Integration suggested the need for electrifying heat of a large part of Europe’s residential and commercial buildings, leading to a target of around 50 million heat pumps installed by 2030 (and requiring an annual growth of about 16% throughout this decade).

On 3 March 2022, the International Energy Agency stated that “speeding up anticipated deployment b doubling current EU installation rates of heat pumps would save an additional 2 bcm of gas use within the first year”.

On 9 March, the European Commission Communication “REPowerEU” doubled down its ambition level by communicating the need to increase annual heat pump sales by a factor of 2 over the next 5 years.

Thomas Nowak, Secretary General of EHPA commented: “Eventually the benefits of heat pumps for a decarbonised society are fully recognized. We need the broadest support to reduce dependency on fossil energy in heating and we need it quickly. Doubling the current heat pump sales in the next 5 years is the very minimum to make EU citizens more independent from fossil energy. In 2021, heat pump sales have reached 2 million units per year, doubling by 2026 would result in about 16.5 million additional units installed in the next five years.* We call upon the Commission to implement this acceleration by establishing an “EU Heat Pump Accelerator” that considers all measures necessary to make installing heat pump technologies easy and affordable for end-users and to adjust legislation accordingly**. We will need this end-user engagement to make the energy transition a success, starting immediately.”

The industry is ready to deliver, and we are available to define the details of accelerating heat pump deployment in cooperation with the European and national legislators.

*EHPA statistics show a heat pump stock of about 17 million heat pumps at the end of 2021. 2.5 million units are estimated for 2022, continuing with 2.9 million (2023), 3.4 million (2024), 3.7 million (2025) to finally arrive at 4 million units in 2026. This would result in cumulative 16.5 million units in the next five years and a total stock of more than 33.5 million in 2026 and puts us on track to 50 million by 2030.

** Energy performance of buildings Directive, Energy taxation Directive, ETS Directive, Energy efficiency Directive, Renewable energy Directive, F-gas Regulation, Ecodesign legislation, etc.