Heat pumps are a technology that is critical to the energy transformation, if decarbonization targets are to be met worldwide. However some countries are lagging behind in their deployment.
According to a new analysis by the UK Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) if Britain were to install heat pumps at the rate neighbors France, Norway and Finland are, the country could significantly reduce gas imports. Finland is a European leader in this area, and if the UK emulated its installation of heat pumps, it could potentially cut gas imports by nearly half – 49% by 2032.
The UK only installed 88 heat pumps per 100,000 people in 2022, while Finland deployed 3,537 per 100,000 people, forty times more. The ECIU analysis says that if the UK installed heat pumps at the same rate as Finland, it could lower its total demand by 32%.
In Norway, with plentiful gas reserves, heat pumps have become the main source of heating, with two-thirds of homes using them. If a similar scenario was enacted in the UK, this would reduce total energy demand by around 28% and gas imports by 40%, which amounts to 70% of the UK's domestic gas use, which is mainly utilized for heating and cooking.
Other European countries continue this trend, with most of them outperforming the UK on sales of heat pumps. The ECIU reports that many European countries are replacing 20% of their residential boilers with heat pumps. It is surprising that sales of this technology hasn't risen with the stark increases in energy prices in the UK. Unfortunately the UK Government lags behind in energy efficiency and decarbonization: it has published various plans, but lacks the incentives and penalties to ensure that this is any more than hot air.
The IEA sees heat pumps as critical for the energy transformation, “Heat pumps are increasingly recognized as a critical technology for heat decarbonization, receiving increasing policy support in several countries over the last years.”
Back in 2021 heat pump sales increased by more than 13% worldwide. In the European Union (EU), where the largest markets are France, Italy and Germany, sales grew by around 35% year-on-year, exceeding 2.2 million units. The next most important markets were the United States (rising 15%), Japan (up by 13%) and China (rising by 13% for air-source heat pumps). Air-source heat pumps account for the majority of sales globally, with a market share greater than 60% in 2021. Ground-source (or geothermal) heat pumps can deliver heating and cooling with higher efficiency than air-source heat pumps, but owing to their higher capital cost and the specific skills and techniques required for installation, they represent only a small part of global sales. In the EU only 2.5% of heat pumps installed are the ground source version.
Heat pumps still meet only around 10% of the global heating demand in buildings though, below the deployment level required to meet the goal of the IEA's Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario. In this scenario, the global heat pump stock reaches about 600 million by 2030, covering at least 20% of global heating needs. The IEA concludes that, “Further policy support and technical innovation are needed, in particular to reduce upfront purchase and installation costs, remove market barriers to complex renovations, improve energy performance and durability, and exploit the potential of heat pumps as an enabler of power system integration and flexibility.” The IEA notes that the lifetime cost for heat pumps is now lower than oil and gas heating in several countries.
National and local governments, utilities and regulatory organizations should cooperate to promote the installation and use of heat pumps, where they would be most effective, in residential and commercial buildings, reducing the load on the grid, particularly at critical times of the day.