“There isn’t a customer who doesn’t want to find out more about heat pumps.”
(Photo: dpa)
Dusseldorf The German heating market is booming. Heating contractors delivered a total of 980,000 heaters in Germany last year. That is five percent more than in the previous year and thus more than in 27 years. This is based on figures published by the Federal Association of the German Heating Industry (BDH) on Monday.
Heat pumps are primarily responsible for the increase in business. In 2022, 236,000 heat pumps were sold – 53 percent more than in the previous year. According to calculations by the Handelsblatt, the market share of heat pumps will increase from 17 percent in 2021 to 24 percent in 2022.
On the other hand, there was a significant decline in the gas heating business: while 653,000 systems were sold in Germany in 2021, it was only 598,500 in 2022, a drop of eight percent. As a result, the market share of gas heaters fell from 70 to 61 percent within a year.
BDH President Jan Brockmann said in view of the figures: “Almost a million heat generators put into circulation are an important step in terms of climate protection for the outdated system stock.” However, the values also show that gas heating is still by far the best-selling type of heating in Germany .
And there has also been a significant increase in oil heating recently. Neither the gas crisis triggered by the Russian conflict nor the advancing climate crisis prevented this. There is probably no lack of interest among homeowners in climate-friendly heating solutions.
Problems with the heat pump: costs, delivery times, lack of craftsmen
Reinhard Loch, head of the energy efficiency group at the consumer advice center in North Rhine-Westphalia, says: “The heat pump plays a role in every energy consultation that we hold. There isn’t a customer who doesn’t want to find out more about this topic.” However, it seems that many people still opt for heaters based on fossil fuels such as gas and oil.
According to Loch, there are several reasons for this. He explains the increased interest in oil heating as follows: “The advantage of oil heating from the customer’s point of view is: I can store oil for one to two years. I then bought it at a fixed price and nobody takes it away from me.”
There is no customer who does not want to find out more about this topic. Reinhard Loch, consumer center NRW, about the interest in heat pumps
There are also hurdles when it comes to heat pumps. Loch says: “The most important reasons that speak for consumers against a heat pump are the high costs and the long delivery times.” Homeowners who need a new heating system would often expect costs of around 20,000 euros. In reality, a heat pump would sometimes cost more than 40,000 euros.
In addition, according to Loch, installers often advise homeowners against a heat pump. “The installers don’t want to be responsible for high costs or technical problems afterwards,” says Loch. In principle, heat pumps are no more maintenance-intensive than other heating systems. But: “According to guild representatives, only 35 percent of all installers are familiar with heat pumps. The others don’t really dare to approach the topic yet.”
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The background to the problems is that the heat pump market is growing too quickly. Heating manufacturers cannot keep up fast enough. They first had to expand their production lines for heat pumps and were simply unable to deliver at times last year. Supply chain problems and material shortages were added. The situation is also driving up prices. And plumbers have traditionally not been trained to install heat pumps.
The supply situation for heat pumps could ease up
Consumer advocate Loch assumes that the capacity problems in the heat pump sector will gradually decrease. There are increasing training courses for installers on the subject of heat pumps. Loch also says: “I expect the supply situation for heat pumps to relax a little in 2023. Then the delivery might only take half a year instead of a year.”
However, there is another factor that is currently encouraging people to buy oil and gas heating systems and which, according to Loch, could possibly increase this year: many people are probably afraid of a ban on selling oil heating systems and therefore want an oil heating system quickly buy. And things could also get tight for gas heaters from 2024. Loch says: “In the summer, the federal government wants to rewrite the Building Energy Act. Then the regulation should come in that from 2024 every newly installed heating system must be operated with two thirds of renewables. That could mean the end for gas heating.”
More: Germany fears disadvantages in the reform of the European electricity market.
