Status: 03/03/2023 2:06 p.m
Heat pumps are booming as an environmentally friendly source of energy. That is why production has recently increased significantly. The costs for skilled trades in heating installation rose.
The demand for heat pumps as an alternative to oil or gas heating is still high. In 2021, heat pumps were used as the primary heating energy source in a good half (50.6 percent) of new residential buildings. In 2016, the proportion was just under a third. Heat pumps are used in detached and semi-detached houses, less so in apartment buildings.
Accordingly, production has recently increased significantly: In the first three quarters of 2022, almost 243,200 heat pumps were produced in Germany, almost half more (48.9 percent) than in the same period last year, as reported by the Federal Statistical Office.
Export to Switzerland, import from Poland
Imports – especially from Sweden, Poland and France – also increased sharply, by 26.5 percent compared to the previous year to a value of around 738 million euros in 2022.
However, German manufacturers also exported many heat pumps, especially to Switzerland, Austria and Poland. The value of exports rose by around 35 percent year-on-year to almost 770 million euros in 2022.
Habeck wants to ban oil and gas heating
Heat pumps use environmental heat from the air, water or the ground to heat buildings. If sustainably generated electricity is used in the process, there is no environmental pollution from CO2 emissions.
Federal Minister of Economics Robert Habeck is promoting the use of heat pumps in order to achieve climate targets in the building sector. A component of this project is also the draft law that the Federal Economics and Building Ministries are working on: It provides for a ban on the installation of new gas and oil heating systems from 2024. However, details are still pending.