Heat pumps and district heating predominant in new housing in Germany
Clean Energy Wire
Heat pumps and district heating account for over 70 percent of heating systems in new homes in Germany, thereby driving forward the heating transition, shows data by energy industry association BDEW.
In 2024, 215,900 new apartments were completed in 76,100 new residential buildings in Germany. One quarter of the new apartments are connected to district heating, 46 percent use a heat pump, and 21 percent are heated by gas boilers.
“We now need appropriate, stable and reliable subsidy programmes in order for this positive trend to continue, as well as clear political signals for investment in modern and efficient heating technology,” BDEW head Kerstin Andreae said.
However, fossil fuels continue to dominate the heating market for existing buildings in the country. Germany’s 43 million apartments were heated mainly with gas (56%) and oil (17%) last year, with heat pumps in about 4 percent of homes.
Cutting greenhouse gas emissions in the heating sector is one of the biggest hurdles on Germany’s path to climate neutrality, which the government aims to achieve by 2045. Progress has been particularly slow in modernising the existing building stock. The previous government adopted a law reform to phase out fossil fuel heating in new buildings, and – step by step – new heating systems in existing buildings. The current leadership has announced major revisions to the law, creating uncertainty in the sector.
