Need for accessible grant schemes

For several years the market for heat pumps has been booming in Europe, but the most recent figures show a significant slowdown of heat pump deployment across Europe. However, Ireland seems to be bucking that trend with increased sales numbers across 2023. Building Services Engineering recently spoke with Enrique Vilamitjana, Managing Director at Panasonic Heating, Ventilation and Air-conditioning and a Board member at the European Heat Pump Association (EHPA), about these trends. Here he gives his perspectives, with more than 30 years of experience in this sector.

Q: The scale and rate of heat pump installations have been slowing down across Europe, what measures can be taken to turn this around?

EHPA has been advocating for a robust policy framework that allows stable growth in the heat pump market. The direction that the European Union wants to take is clear – to reach climate neutrality by 2050, become more energy independent and develop its
industrial leadership on clean technologies. However, while ambitions are there, practical actions and concrete implementation
plans to achieve those are not sufficient for the moment, both at European level and national level in the EU countries. The European Union has been dealing with tremendous difficulties in the past years, such as Covid, the Russia-Ukraine conflict, inflation, etc.

However, without decisive actions to deploy heat pumps, we will fail to decarbonise our buildings and enhance their comfort. EHPA estimates that to achieve the REPowerEU1 targets, 60 million more heat pumps (of all types) need to be installed by 2030.

See PDF of full article at Heat Pump need streamline and accessible grant schemes