According to the Federal Statistical Office, more than half of the residential buildings built in 2022 are heated with the heat pump, especially detached and semi-detached houses. Hardly asked anymore: the oil heating.
More than half of the residential buildings built in 2022 will be heated with heat pumps, according to the Federal Statistical Office. From 2021 to 2022 alone, their share increased by more than six percentage points from 50.6 to 57.0 percent. For comparison: in 2015, the share of heat pumps was still 31.4 percent.
Heat pumps are mainly used in detached and semi-detached houses: a heat pump was installed in 60.6 percent of all houses of this type last year. Their use in apartment buildings was significantly less common – the proportion was 35.8 percent. 21.4 percent of apartment buildings are heated with district heating and 34.0 percent with natural gas. 4.7 percent of the new residential buildings use the other renewable energies taken together.
Renewable energies on the rise
Overall, more and more new residential buildings are using renewable energies for heating, including ground or air heat pumps, solar thermal energy, wood, biogas/biomethane and other biomass. Conventional energy sources include oil, gas and electricity. District heating is another energy source that is not included in the statistics as either a renewable or a conventional energy source.
74.7 percent of the residential buildings completed in 2022 will be heated entirely or partially with renewable energies. This share increased by four percentage points compared to 2021. In 2015 it was still 61.5 percent. Of the newly built detached houses, 77.0 percent are heated entirely or partially with renewable energy sources, 80.9 percent of two-family houses and 58.7 percent of houses with three or more apartments.
As the primary energy source, i.e. the energy source mainly used for heating, renewable energies will be used in more than half (61.4 percent) of the residential buildings completed in 2022. In 2015 it was still 38.0 percent.
As the second most important primary energy source, natural gas was used in 2022 in 28.0 percent of new buildings. The share of gas heating as the primary energy source has decreased continuously in recent years. In 2021 it was still 34.4 percent and in 2015 it was 51.5 percent. 8.0 percent of the new residential buildings were primarily heated with district heating. Oil heaters were only used as primary heating in 440 new residential buildings, which was 0.4 percent of new buildings.
GEG adoption before the summer break?
The draft of the Building Energy Act has been the subject of debate for weeks. The core of the planned law stipulates that new and replaced heating systems must be operated with at least 65 percent renewable energy from 2024. Representatives of the traffic light coalition are struggling to get it through Parliament before the summer break.