This year, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said on its official website that the EU sanctions would reduce the bloc’s gas imports from Russia by more than a third. In response the IEA has given 10 recommendations aimed at increasing the resilience of the EU’s gas network and minimising the difficulties that vulnerable consumers may encounter. Among them is the mention of speeding up the process of replacing gas boilers with heat pumps.
Ireland has announced an €8 billion plan that will almost double the value of grants for heat pump projects, with the hope of installing 400,000 domestic heat pumps by 2030.
The Dutch government has announced plans to ban fossil fuel boilers from 2026 and to make hybrid heat pumps the standard for domestic heating. The Dutch cabinet has committed €150 million per year until 2030 to support homeowners in purchasing heat pumps.
In 2020, Norway is subsidising more than 2,300 homes through the ENOVA programme, with a focus on the market for high temperature heat pumps for district heating.
In 2020, the UK government announced its ‘Ten Point Plan for a Green Industrial Revolution’, which mentions a £1 billion investment (approximately R8.7 billion) in homes and public buildings to make new and old homes and public buildings more energy efficient and comfortable; to make public sector buildings greener; and to cut spending on hospitals and schools. To make homes, schools and hospitals greener and cleaner, 600,000 heat pumps are proposed to be installed each year from 2028.
In 2019, Germany proposes to achieve climate neutrality by 2050 and to advance this target to 2045 in May 2021. In the study “Germany Climate Neutral 2045”, the German Agora Energy Transition Forum and other leading think tanks estimate that if Germany’s carbon neutrality target is brought forward to 2045, at least 14 million heat pumps would have to be installed in Germany’s heating sector.
