How heat pumps promote the energy transition

Europe could save 60 billion euros a year if it managed to double the installation of electric heat pumps, as envisaged by the RePowerEU plan.And it would avoid enormous consumption and transportation of gas.

• Fossil fuels provide almost 83 percent of the energy used for heating in Europe.
• If we increased the adoption of electric heat pumps, we could avoid consuming and transporting gas worth 60 billion euros a year.
• It is one of the most promising technologies to stimulate the electrification of the energy system.

The technology of electric heat pumps could save moneyEuropean Union about 60 billion euros per year.As?It would allow you to avoid the consumption of natural gas, of which 90 percent was imported into Europe, 40 percent of which from Russia – at least until the start of the war in Ukraine.For this reason the European Commission with the floor RePowerEU plans to double its deployment over the next five years and reach 1.2 million new devices.

How heat pumps work

Generally speaking, i fossil fuels – oil, gas and coal – provide almost as much83 percent of the energy used for heating in European countries.Of this, the natural gas it powers 66 percent of the boilers.Instead, in a nutshell, heat pumps are highly efficient electrical devices:they extract heat from one natural source – such as air, water or soil – and transport it inside the structure to be heated or cooled through radiant floor systems or terminals, such as common radiators.

It is for this reason that they can help accelerate theenergy independence of the Union in light of the social, environmental and economic effects ofRussia's invasion of Ukraine.“In Europe, a situation of growing dependence on Russian gas has been created over the decades, we simply have to break the habit,” he states with conviction Richard Lowes, heat pump expert and senior associate at the Regulatory assistance project, an independent non-profit organization that deals with energy decarbonization policies.

Retrofits and heat pumps:potential for the energy transition

The technologies used for heating, like the incentive tools, vary from country to country.In Scandinavia, Poland And Baltic countries, for example, the district heating which, as defined in Article 2 of Directive 2009/28/EC, allows thermal energy in the form of steam, hot water or chilled liquids to be transported from a central production source to a plurality of buildings or sites via a heating or cooling network.

Elsewhere, as in Italy, one is used large gas boiler to heat theentire condominium or they are installed small boilers in individual apartments.In case of retrofit, i.e. of replacement of an old and energy-intensive technology with a more efficient one, one could, in the first case, adopt a large geothermal heat pump to extract heat from the ground and bring hot water to the apartment through the underfloor radiant system.In the second case, each apartment could be equipped with a heat pump which, with pipes running through the building, transport heat from the ground into each apartment, where it is brought to the ideal temperature to heat the temperature or water.

In densely populated areas this is not possible.The most efficient way to decarbonise heating, Lowes suggests, is to replace central gas and coal boilers with industrial heat pumps, capable of extracting heat even from wastewater treatment plants or lakes.

Obstacles still to be overcome

THE costs of retrofitting residential buildings, however, can be high and vary based on dimensions, at conditions of the property, at thelocation (therefore to the meteorological conditions) and to the technology already used.In 2021, Lowes reports, it cost more than €10 million to install a ground-source geothermal system and heat pumps in each of 364 apartments in a complex of seven gas-fired residential towers in the North of England.

We must then be able to get everyone to agree, for example when the most efficient solution, environmentally and economically, is the installation of a single large heating system rather than individual small boilers.

It must be said, then, that theelectricity used to power heat pumps in many areas of Europe is more expensive than natural gas.And it can be equally polluting because, it is worth remembering, it always depends on how it is produced.Supporters of this technology are clamoring for an acceleration of bans on the use of natural gas in buildings, larger government incentives for the energy requalification and one carbon tax for gas heating.

Finally, the theme of skills:the increase in demand is colliding with the lack of training useful forinstallation of heat pumps.“We are not training plumbers and heating engineers at the rate we need,” says Lowes, who adds “because this is such an important part of the energy transition, this will quickly become a barrier.”We must therefore accelerate energy transition can't wait.