The Future of Heat Pumps

Russia’s moves to sharply reduce natural gas flows into Europe have deepened the global energy crisis. Among the host of measures countries are taking in response to the crisis, heat pumps are one of the most important long-term solutions widely available today to reduce natural gas use for heating, improve energy security, keep consumers’ energy bills affordable, and make progress on reducing emissions. Heat pumps are receiving unprecedented policy support through the European Union’s REPowerEU Plan, the US Inflation Reduction Act and other policy initiatives around the world. However, key barriers to further scaling up production and deployment of heat pumps remain, such as high upfront purchase prices and operational costs, the legacy of the existing building stock, limited manufacturing capacity, and a shortage of workers trained to install the pumps.

The Future of Heat Pumps, a special report in the IEA’s World Energy Outlook series, will provide an outlook for heat pumps, identifying key opportunities to accelerate their deployment. It will also highlight the major barriers and policy solutions, and explore the implications of an accelerated uptake of heat pumps for energy security and efforts to tackle climate change.