Germany's plan to install half a million new heat pumps annually "ambitious but feasible" - industry

Germany wants to rapidly increase the expansion of heat pumps and install 500,000 new units annually from 2024 onwards, said the economy and climate ministry, after agreeing a joint declaration with stakeholders. “We need more speed,” said economy minister Robert Habeck after a meeting with representatives from industry, the skilled trades, trade unions and consumer protection associations. “If we want to free ourselves from the constraints of Russian imports, we must not only think about the electricity sector, but also about the heating sector.” The industry called the plans “ambitious, but feasible”, and demanded the right regulatory framework. Germany is already facing problems such as long delivery times and bottlenecks in installation capacity due to a shortage of skilled workers and other issues such as insufficient power grids. The government now aims to draft a “ramp-up programme for heat pumps”.

The government had decided that any new heating unit must be fuelled with at least 65 percent renewable energy from 2024 on, “if possible”. German households are increasingly switching to heat pumps when upgrading their heating systems. Heat pump sales grew almost a third to about 155,000 units in Germany in 2021, bringing the installed total to more than 1 million, according to the government. However, their share in new heating was at less than 20 percent, with a large majority (70%) gas heating installations.