After the record year of 2023, heating sales this year will return to the level of previous years, the industry association reports. More than every second new system heats with gas.
Heating engineers in Germany also sold significantly fewer systems in the third quarter than in the comparable quarter of the record year 2023. Overall, sales in the first nine months fell by 48 percent to 548,000 systems, said the Federal Association of the German Heating Industry (BDH) in Cologne.
“The heating transition comes into effect a good year after the Building Energy Act (GEG) came into force and the expansion of funding to all apartment owners and homeowners at the end of August,” explained the association. He expects that around 740,000 systems, including heat pumps, will be sold throughout the year (2023: 1.3 million systems). Heating sales are now back at the long-term level from 2014 to 2019, it said.
Ongoing uncertainty among consumers
Heat pump sales fell by 52 percent compared to the same period last year. By the end of September, the industry had sold 141,500 systems of all types. The BDH estimates that a total of around 200,000 heat pumps will be sold in 2024. The federal government had set the target of installing 500,000 systems annually.
According to an association spokesman, a main reason for the overall decline in sales is the normalization after the record year of 2023. Last year, in the wake of the debate about the Building Energy Act, many consumers preferred to install a new gas or oil heating system.
Concerns about a gas shortage as a result of the gas crisis also played a role in sales of heat pumps in 2023. In addition, in 2024 there will be continued uncertainty among consumers about the technical possibilities and the subsidies offered by the Building Energy Act. In addition, some consumers were also waiting for the municipal heating plans that are currently being developed.
From January to September, all system types recorded year-on-year declines. The decline was greatest in biomass systems at 61 percent to 18,000 heat generators. Around 75,500 oil heaters were sold, 7 percent less than in 2023. Sales of gas heaters fell by 50 percent. With 57 percent of all heat generators, gas systems continued to make up the largest share of all systems sold. 26 percent of all heat generators were heat pumps.
Source: Stern
