European heat pump sales are collapsing

https://www.euractiv.com/section/energy-environment/news/european-heat-pump-sales-are-collapsing/

by rustoo • 3 years ago

19 74 3 years ago

chewz2• 3 years ago

In Northern Europe heatpumps are simply not effective (yet). Heating at colder nights means heating with electricity, where gas is 1/3 of the electricity price. 100s of stories of people who converted to heat pumps (being oversold with less then perfect home insulations) and who are disapointed financialy.

Southern Europe is different story.

willvarfar• 3 years ago

This is not my own experience nor the experience of every other homeowner I know in my corner of rural Sweden (and it's a popular discussion topic). I don't know of a single disappointment story, nor is it a thing in the local media.

Heat pumps are very cost effective and me and most other homeowners I know have, over the last couple of decades, completely migrated from wood to heat pumps. In fact, there might not be that many homes who'd convert left to convert.

The House construction locally has definitely tanked this last year. Much fewer projects.

lagrange77• 3 years ago

Do you use it as part of a geothermal system, or are you talking about extracting the heat from the air?

My thermodynamics class is some time ago, but pumping the heat stored in arctic air to a sufficiently high level for residential heating sounds indeed like an electric heating effectively.

Arnt3• 3 years ago

Digressing a bit... there's something weird about these stories.

I come from rural-ish Norway and live in a big city in Germany. Lots of people here in Germany are quite willing to tell me that heat pumps don't work in the area where I come from, where I have many friends with heat pumps. Their confidence amazes me. I don't understand how they can be so confident.

distances4• 3 years ago

They are massively popular in Finland, so clearly they work in the Northern Europe. Gas isn't even a competitor there, the other main option is district heating. Basically all other forms (mainly oil, direct electric heating) are on their way out.

bad_alloc• 3 years ago

This is false. The Nordics use way more heat pumps than the rest of Europe:

https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/10/30/do-heat-pumps-work...

pgeorgi5• 3 years ago

A charitable reading of the parent comment is to focus on "converting". The Nordics tend to have their buildings designed for heat pumps from the start, or converted (and fixed up) a long time ago.

I'm in a house in Germany and got it converted from gas to heat pump a couple of years ago. It took some adaptations to make that work, but on the flip side we obviously blasted lots of heat into the atmosphere before, which we're reigning in now (still work in progress).

So yeah, conversions of houses not built to "heat pump spec" has follow-on efforts and costs that the heat pump hype didn't advertise. I had a rough idea what to expect and that it'll take a while to sort out everything, but if you went into the conversion with the idea that you're just replacing one part with another, you're in for disappointment.

zelos• 3 years ago

In the UK it's more pronounced. I pay £0.28/kWh for electricity and £0.069/kWh for gas, so as I understand it installing a heat pump will end up increasing my energy bills unless its coefficient of performance is over 4.

teamonkey4• 3 years ago

And in the UK the regulation that bans new gas boilers doesn't come in until 2025. Despite all the new homes being built in the UK, most are still being built with gas central heating.

sim7c00• 3 years ago

in my country new homes come with solar panels and heatpumps usually. if you are unlucky not to earn litteral shit-tons, you can only rent as house prices are through the roof.. with that rental contract comes extra service fees for heatpump and solar panels. those costs are about 10 times higher than savings from not using Gas and having the panels... and they persist for the entirety of the contract. so basically you are off much more expensive. --- for the climate they say >.> ... i can see people getting much less excited to go for green options, simply because its not affordable especially for regular or low income homes... it's just another scheme to get ur money. - it's maybe a bit harsh opinion, but its hard to draw any other conclusions. Send billions upon billions for War, and have households collapse by forcing these kinds of tech on people without any subsidies or help to pay for them. I hope soon to move away from the western countries. i work in IT on a nice salary and i can't even afford to live here anymore :/

xoa• 3 years ago

In Northern Europe heatpumps are simply not effective (yet).

That's not what I've heard of even air, but to be clear, you are talking air source right? I'm near the Canadian border in northern New England and am getting ready at work to have another vertical ground source (geothermal) heat pump put in, and those are very effective year round. Well loop is around 515' (~155m), which is on the longer side but not a big deal by well drilling standards (which is why lots of well drilling companies have been expanding into heat pumps in the last 5 years and availability has sky rocketed). The price is definitely much higher than air source for now, maybe always will carry some premium, but the major government incentives here help significantly and of course the reliability is high. There are a few minor other bonuses as well I guess, like aesthetically speaking once done there can be nothing to near nothing visible outside.

There are a few other strategies (horizontal ground, water source, semi-open) that some are looking at too but around here simple vertical closed looks likely to end up as the majority due to economies of scale, it can be done anywhere vs needing more/special land, and like I said leverages an existing industry. It's neat to see coming along, so perhaps longer term that'll offer an option in Northern Europe too.

distances4• 3 years ago

The article doesn't mention that new building construction has almost halted in many European markets. I would assume that to play a much larger role than the reasons presented in the article.

bhouston2• 3 years ago

Makes sense. In our new neighborhood in North America every single house got a heat pump by default. If housing starts drop that would significant affect sales.

taylodl2• 3 years ago

That's because they're not running gas lines in a lot of new neighborhoods. If you don't have a gas line then the only sane alternative is to get a heat pump.

jeroenhd2• 3 years ago

It also doesn't help that, at least here, prices are higher and delays are longer because of high demand and low supply, especially on the side of the craftspeople who install heatpumps. That, combined with an overloaded power grid, isn't helping adoption much.

You can't "just" install a heatpump like you install a TV, these figures are more complex than just "people aren't buying them".

The apparent data source (https://www.ehpa.org/news-and-resources/press-releases/heat-...) seems to indicate that sales are dropping especially in Finland and Denmark. Which is interesting, because Finland seems to be market leader in this stuff: https://yle.fi/a/74-20049437

What this graph also doesn't show, is the huge spike in sales that 2022, the year have been taken as a basis, was compared to previous years: https://www.carbonbrief.org/guest-post-how-heat-pumps-became...

Of course the heat pump industry, which is the source of the data indicating a collapse, would prefer to maintain the huge growth the invasion into Ukraine and the subsequent changes in fossil fuel prices have brought to the sector. However, I suspect sales may fall back to pre-war levels, which is still a sizeable industry, and that the recent boom was an abnormality rather than an indicator of consumer interest.

distances4• 3 years ago

Which is interesting, because Finland seems to be market leader in this stuff

Finland is especially affected by the construction downturn due to inflation and interest rates. The heating choice is usually still a heat pump.

3078 building permits were granted for dwellings in July-September 2023, which was 53% less than a year earlier.

https://www.stat.fi/julkaisu/cl84ds3gkv1rw0ew57o9v4r70

r0ckarong• 3 years ago

There was a distinct pressure to invest in electric heat pumps because the prices for fossil fuels were so insane. Now the prices have normalized and suddenly paying what you were used to sounds more attractive than spending tens of thousands of Euros on top of the electric bill.

mytailorisrich3• 3 years ago

Installation is way too expensive and potentially disruptive.

smooc3• 3 years ago

Where do you get your numbers from? Right now, pre heat pump, I'm at 2000kWh usage and return to the net 4000kWh (so 2000kWh in excess). I use 750m3 of gas.

This costs me 100e per month.

I'm investing in a full electric ground source heat pump. Which cost me 20k. An alternative is a air heatpump which is around 8k, but with a lower scop.

Let's assume a scop of 5 (air-air) which is conservative. The amount of energy required for heating / showering / cooking was 750 * 9.27 = 6952.5 kWh. Dividing this by the scop of 5 means I require 1390.5 kWh to replace gas. This means I still have excess of solar kWh.

For now I can use the grid as a battery. This means I have no electricity costs - I actually get 20e per month after taxes.

So for 8k I have nullified my gas and electric bill. This means a payback period of 5.5 years (8000/120/12) or a yield of 18% (120/8000 * 100*12) per year.

So it isn't required to have tens of thousands to invest and you get a positive yield (depending the tax climate) even with current gas prices.

The 20k ground source heat pump looks a bit different. But I like that it is quiet and it can cool in summer for less energy that an air-air one.*

benj1112• 3 years ago

How would the sums work out if you were actually paying for electricity?

jeroenhd2• 3 years ago

While heat pumps tend to pay themselves back by simply being one of the most efficient methods of heating possible, they do require a large investment upfront. With the current economic situation, it makes sense that fewer people are willing to make such an investment. You could of course get a loan, but not everyone is interested in getting themselves into any kind of financial risk when cost of living is up and wages are lagging behind.

ROI depends heavily on the amount of solar power you can also invest into, the weather, and fossil fuel prices. Right when fossil fuel prices spiked because of Russia's invasion, getting a heat pump was a no brainer, because the difference between electricity and fossil fuel prices took months or more off the time to earn back the heat pump investment, but now that fuel prices are dropping back to normal, the equation changed.

holgerschurig3• 3 years ago

Well, even today, using heat pumps is cheaper on the long run (like on a 10 year horizont). Especially if you have solar on your roof and can use your own solar electricy, at least partially.

Besides the "big heat pump" outside that sometimes needs changes to the house (like installing underfloor heating) people are now starting to use normal split-AC devices with a SCOP of 3 or better for heating. That's even cheaper.

teamonkey4• 3 years ago

They're more expensive than a new gas boiler, more expensive to run than gas heating (due to low gas prices), they often need upgrades to the entire home heating system and there's a cost of living crisis across Europe. It's not really a surprise.

immibis• 3 years ago

Are low gas prices due to subsidized gas? They were supposed to be very high due to the German-corruption-made dependence on Russian gas, and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

dagw2• 3 years ago

It's not subsidies, gas prices are down to pre-invasion levels. Lots of changes were implemented to reduce overall gas demand, plus all governments build up their gas reserves so to avoid local energy shocks. Countries also set up alternate sources of gas. This all combined to push down gas prices.

teamonkey4• 3 years ago

The UK sources most of its gas from the North Sea, not Russia, and that's become cheaper now that there's less of a demand for it from mainland Europe (for many reasons). Also, though gas is cheaper, power is 2x the price it was 3 years ago and more expensive than much of mainland Europe. Still, relative to electricity, the cost per kWh of gas remains very cheap.

holgerschurig3• 3 years ago

due to the German-corruption-made dependence on Russian gas

You have a source for this? Corruption is a criminal offence under both german and EU laws. So if there was corruption ... where are the court cases, where are the convictions? Who went to jail? Did anyone even TRY to bring someone to court for this?

There was a time when most germans had oil central heating. And then, since about 1980, this gradually changed. People installed gas central heating more and more --- not caring at all if the gas came from the Netherlands, Norway or Russia. One normally didn't knew. But why did they do that?

- the central heating device was cheaper - the central heating device was more efficient (especiall the "Brennwertkessel") - you didn't need a stinking oil tank in your basement, so yay, one more cellar room!

On top of this, a lot of eastern european country dependend WAY more on russian fossil fuels than Germany, like Rumania, Bulgaria, Hungary (that one even today!). That only Germany is singled out is probably a result of very succesful polish PiS propaganda. And the tendency of people to believe things that sound okay, without actual research.

Just look at a map of eastern european pipelines. You might know "North Stream" becuase of propaganda. But notice that there is a maendering of 15 other pipelines visiting all eastern and southern european countries? You never hear about the others ... why? Here's a list of all of them: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_der_Erdgaspipelines#Euro... --- and that JUST gas. Not even oil. And it doesn't also cover coal (where Poland made itself dependent on Russia).

theshrike794• 3 years ago

Only if you're living in a country that has gas infrastructure.

Nordics don't use gas for non-industrial purposes at all, and even industrial ones are rare now that the Russian pipelines are shut down.

MilaM• 3 years ago

Sales have decreased from 565,000 to 485,000 or 14% in "Europe" YoY in the third quarter 2023. I would not call that a collapse.

eur0pa4• 3 years ago

The cost of electricity in most of Europe is prohibitive, all things and fees considered I'm sitting at €0.50/kWh. Furthermore, most homes are allotted 3kW, upgradeable to 6kW for a fixed one-time fee, and perpetual fees in the monthly bill.

The recent (2021) AC unit with a heat pump in this apartment draws 0.75 to 1.1kW. That means for every hour I'm using it I'm paying about €0.50, and I can't turn on neither the dishwasher, nor the washing machine, nor the oven while it's running. Maybe I can use the hairdryer but even that might trip the breaker if the wrong combination of lights, TV and fridge happens.

Electricity is scarce and expensive in Europe, gas isn't. I appreciate how efficient and more sustainable heat pumps are but money doesn't grow on trees.

mytailorisrich3• 3 years ago

Furthermore, most homes are allotted 3kW, upgradeable to 6kW for a fixed one-time fee, and perpetual fees in the monthly bill.

Are you sure of those numbers?

3kW is the max capacity of a single socket (at least in the UK). My electric shower is 10kW and electric hobs/cookers also need higher ratings than standard sockets. Here in the UK I believe that the standard domestic capacity is 100A per home (so about 24kW).

Macha• 3 years ago

Yeah, 3kW is crazy low. I checked my local appliance store's website and they sell kettles capable of pulling 3kW on their own.

bowietrousers• 3 years ago

Standard single phase grid connection is either 60A, 80A or 100A in the UK. The numbers the OP is quoting here certainly aren't representative.

eur0pa4• 3 years ago

It is in Italy, where I'm located.

distances4• 3 years ago

Same in Finland. Single family homes typically have 3x25A or 3x35A, which means 17kW or 24kW.

prepend2• 3 years ago

I’m really surprised by that price.

I live in a top top US state and pay <$0.10/kWh for unlimited electricity and can get down to 7 cents if I sign up for alternate times and special programs.

I used over 1,000kWh last month.

I’m trying to figure out if my future is 5x energy prices or there’s just a huge structural difference that makes one country’s energy infrastructure vastly superior.

syntaxing• 3 years ago

Top top as in north or top top as in expensive? Are you factoring in delivery charges? Cause the average American electric price is 0.163 kWh which is pretty close to what I pay.

[1] https://www.bls.gov/regions/midwest/data/averageenergyprices...

holgerschurig3• 3 years ago

I read a statistics before the COVID pandemic (and Russia's invasion) and that boiled down to two things:

* electricity is half as expensive in the USA * but median US households use double the electric power than their european counterparts

Reasons are much better housing standards here (much better insulation), and WAY less AC devices. Another reason is of course the higher price, this makes people buy household devices that use less power. Like the european fridge, which hasn't an ice-cube maker by default, so it's insulation isn't artificially broken.

Also, european pay more for infrastructure in their power prices, like for the transit lines. If you ever look up hard statistics about power outages (like the SAIDI value, amount of minutes per year per customer without power) you see that the US power grid has been starved to death: more than 240 minutes per year without power. Compare this with about 11 minutes in Germany ...

And finally, many european subsidized "green energy" (like Solar) when it was still more expensive than fossil-made electricity. And the subsidy was then paid by all power consumers, not from general taxes.

As a result, CO2 emission per electricity customer / household in most of europe is lower than the same value in the USA.

Dolototo• 3 years ago

You are highly simplifying things.

France has cheap energy and a lot of electric heating.

Guess for whom a heat pump might be the next best thing?

Yeah French people.

audunw• 3 years ago

You’re making generalisations about Europe that just don’t make sense. There are plenty of countries/regions in Europe where electricity is more readily available.

You can’t even generalise about a single country. North Germany has a lot more renewable electricity than South Germany.

Is the AC power consumption you’re citing for summer or winter? Seems crazy high for winter in Italy (if that’s where you’re from ref your other comment). Our home in Norway uses about that much right now in mid winter.

I guess the apartment might not be well insulated? That’s another problem countries in Europe need to work on. It’s insane to waste energy due to insufficient insulation. Energy, especially fossil energy, is not going to get more plentiful any time soon. If you don’t invest in energy saving measures soon you’ll be screwed eventually.

Arnt3• 3 years ago

So I googled, and it seems that sales have increased every year from 2005 to 2022, but sales in 2023 will be only slightly higher than those in 2021. "Collapse" doesn't seem quite right.

altals2023• 3 years ago

No more cheap Russian energy. In place, expensive nordic and American energy. It is basically active self-sabotaging by European leaders. Not only heat pumps, a lot of businesses bankrupt. You can ask any Germans friends how bad German economy is and next couple of years. Some even wish to move to Indonesia or Eastern Asia side to look for jobs. Heat pump sale is just minuscule to all other collapsing sales there. Meanwhile the business contacts I know in Moscow and Petersburg having historic bonuses and pay increases. Meanwhile, UK and German tax payers still facing new taxes and subsidies cuts as I type this. Look on the bright side, look for military complex jobs. I see they are hiring.

European heat pump sales are collapsing

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