New heat pumps brochure

Europe must deliver solutions for a sustainable and secure use of energy as there is an urgency to switch to renewable efficient heating and cooling technologies in buildings, industry, and networks. Without a dedicated EU action plan, 22 million old individual heating appliances and several thousand large old fossil-based heating units are at risk of being replaced by fossil boilers.

Heating and cooling systems are the largest part of energy use in most homes throughout the world. In Europe they are responsible for 50 % of total energy consumption, with 80 % of household energy consumed still based on fossil fuels.

The EU's Heat Pump Action Plan to accelerate roll-out across the EU includes the Heat Pump Accelerator partnership that will bring together the Commission, EU Member States, industry experts, financial institutions and training providers from across the entire heat pump value chain.

In addition, EU businesses and citizens will receive targeted information on existing heat pump solutions and future legislation will aim at phasing out stand-alone fossil fuel boilers by 2029. The mapping of financial opportunities for both heat pump deployment at the individual level and heating networks supplied by large heat pumps will contribute to heating and cooling strategies at local and regional levels.

Heat pumps using green electricity can therefore play a major role in supporting this goal. Heat pumps offer a mature technology that is more efficient than using boilers, by extracting energy from the outside air or ground to warm the inside of a home or workspace. They can also work in reverse, to cool a building by transferring heat from indoors to the outside air or into the ground. Heat pumps have an important role to play in our net zero future.

This new brochure showcases seven projects managed by CINEA and funded under the Horizon 2020 research and innovation funding programme, which demonstrate the EU's firm commitment to expanding the heat pump sector.

This Results Pack is available in six languages on the CORDIS website (DE, EN, ES, FR, IT, PL).