"Fearing for her reappointment, Ursula von der Leyen, boss of the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, soft-pedalled over unpopular green policies in the run-up to the European Parliament elections on June 9th. Mrs von der Leyen had proclaimed in 2019 that the EU Green Deal, the union’s strategy to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, was the EU’s “man-on-the-moon moment”.
But in February she blocked a draft law to slash the use of pesticides in farming, and loosened some of the environmental strings tied to the subsidies of the EU’s common agricultural policy. Still more striking was her decision to delay publication of a heat-pump action plan that had been scheduled for early in the year to an unspecified time after the elections.
The postponement in releasing a plan considered key to the success of the Green Deal has dismayed many EU policymakers.
According to Eurostat, the EU’s statistics agency, about half of all energy consumed in the EU is for heating and cooling, and more than 70% of that still comes from fossil fuels, mostly natural gas.
Buildings account for about 35% of energy-related greenhouse-gas (GHG) emissions. And around four-fifths of energy consumption by residential buildings is used for heating them and supplying their hot water.
EU leaders support decarbonising heating—with varying degrees of enthusiasm. The switch from boilers to heat pumps, which work rather like refrigerators in reverse, can be expensive (the price of heat pumps is two or three times that of gas boilers) and disruptive (some buildings need extensive renovations to install heat pumps) which is why it is unpopular with many voters.
But crucially they run on electricity rather than gas or oil—and the electricity can come from green sources. Without a big push for cleaner heating, the EU is liable to miss its goal of 2050. Fifteen member states wrote to the commission in mid-May to lament the postponement of the launch of the heat-pump plan.
The lack of clear and consistent policies has confused people and turned residential heating in several European countries into a political issue, particularly in Germany and Italy. Last year a proposed German law that would have banned new oil and gas boilers and subsidised heat pumps powered by low-carbon or green electricity was decried as the Heizhammer (the heating hammer) by tabloids and the AfD, a far-right opposition party. The government caved in. The law’s watered-down version says new heaters must run on at least 65% renewable energy.
Italy bungled the implementation of its generous subsidies to promote heat pumps. In 2020 Giuseppe Conte’s government launched the popular Superbonus 110% initiative that entitled homeowners to a tax credit of up to 110% on the cost of upgrading their property through the installation of heat pumps or solar panels. Last year Giorgia Meloni, the hard-right prime minister, scaled this subsidy back to a minimum because of spiralling costs caused by widespread abuse of the bonus. This upset homeowners, investors and builders. Sales of heat pumps in Italy dropped sharply.
“There is a lot of misinformation and angst about heat pumps,” concedes Mario Kohle, chief executive of Enpal, a German green-tech firm that sells solar panels and heat pumps. Some believe they cost €100,000 ($107,000) and that you need underfloor heating to install a heat pump.
In fact, says Mr Kohle, the cost of heat pumps starts at €7,800 for those who qualify for the government’s subsidy. Underfloor heating increases the efficiency of heat pumps, but it is not a requirement.
The Scandinavian public is generally well informed about the long-term advantages of low-carbon heating, but in the rest of Europe the general view of heat pumps is distorted by stubborn myths, says Martin Lewerth, boss of Aira, a Swedish maker of heat pumps. A study by Jan Rosenow, an energy expert, found 18 such criticisms. Mr Lewerth considers four of them to be especially damaging to his industry: heat pumps don’t work in existing buildings; they don’t work when it is cold; they will increase heating bills; and their technology is new and untested.
Yet amid all the criticisms and rebuttals surrounding heat pumps, the fact remains that they have become the dominant technology in cold Scandinavian countries. Their efficiency is such that they can lower heating costs even in countries such as Britain where the price of electricity is considerably higher than that of gas. And they have been around since they were invented in 1856 by Peter Ritter von Rittingen, an Austrian engineer.
Rumpy-pumpy
If Europe is to reach its goal of having 60m heat pumps installed within its borders by 2030, up from only 20m now, both the union and its members will need to do much more to promote the technology, especially since last year heat-pump sales declined by 5% on average in 14 EU countries after rising steeply for ten years. NiBE, a Swedish heat-pump maker, had to dismiss 500 workers in February. Vaillant, a German maker, cut 700 jobs, while Stiebel Eltron, a German rival, had to furlough hundreds of workers.
Policy zigzags such as the removal of government support for heat pumps in Italy and the Heizhammer debacle in Germany were probably the most important factor in the decrease in sales of the pumps. The commission ought to publish its plan as soon as possible, so as to give Europeans more certainty; though it might already be too late. The fight against climate change is one area where Europe can still claim to be a world leader. The EU Green Deal can still become the continent’s Apollo programme." [1]
Just dream about it.
1. The EU’s role as heat-pump pioneer. The Economist; London Vol. 452, Iss. 9404, (Jul 6, 2024): 30.
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