Heat Pump use in Europe
EurObservER has published its Heat Pump Barometer report and notes a 12.6% increase in the heat pump market in European countries between 2018 and 2019. Now over 40 million heat pumps are in use across the EU28.
We recommend you read the Heat Pump Barometer report. For those short of time we include a summary here and the table below which shows that Sweden has 15 times more ground source heat pumps in use than the UK does (despite having a population one sixth the size of the UK).
In this table "Aerothermal Heat Pumps" is used to mean air source heat pumps,
including reversible units primarily bought for cooling.
"Ground source heat pumps" figures include water source heat pumps.
The high tax on UK electricity is preventing the decarbonisation of heat
A key reason to install a ground source heat pumps is that one kilowatt of electricity can be used to transfer 4 kilowatts of heat into your building. This high coefficient of performance of 4 is sadly neutralised by the taxes and levies on electricity that artificially raise the price of electricity to be 4 times the price of gas in the UK.
It is the high price of electricity in the UK that is preventing the decarbonisation of heat that is so urgently needed. Just the taxes and "environmental levies" on each kWh of electricity are greater than the the full price of one kWh of gas.
The UK has almost the highest price for electricity in Europe (including taxes), and almost the lowest price for gas (with very little tax). See Fiscal Background.
See Renewable Heating See Renewable Cooling