Three in four new German buildings approved in 2023 will come with heat pump

Heat pumps have doubled their share as a primary heating source in Germany throughout the past decade, according to the country’s Federal Statistical Office (Destatis). Of all new residential buildings for which construction was approved in 2023, more than three quarters (76%) will primarily use heat pumps and nearly 65 percent of the almost 96,800 residential buildings completed in that year are using heat pumps as their primary heating source. Compared to the previous year alone, the share of heat pumps rose by 8 percentage points. The data show that heat pumps are mainly used in single and two-family homes: In about 69 percent of all single- and two-family houses completed in 2023, heat pumps were used as the primary source of heating, but were used much less frequently in multi-family houses (41%). Renewable energy – including heat pumps, which use geothermal and environmental thermal energy – is used for heating in four out of five new residential buildings. Nearly 70 percent of newly built residential buildings in 2023 are heated predominantly with renewable energy sources, up from only 38.5 percent in 2014. 

While the German government had aimed for the installation of 500,000 new heat pumps per year from 2024 in an effort to decarbonise the country's heating sector, German heating association BDH estimates that fewer than 200,000 heat pumps will be sold this year. Heat pump sales fell by 52 percent in the first three months of the year compared to 2023.