2023-08-08 20:40:11
If you want something too much, you sometimes get the exact opposite. Economics Minister Robert Habeck and his Greens are experiencing this. Just over a year ago, they set the goal that 500,000 heat pumps should be installed in Germany in the future. The reform of the Building Energy Act (GEG) should leave homeowners little choice but to install such an electric heater after a heating failure. But planned economy methods are not well received in a free society. Especially not when it comes to something as private as your own four walls.
Receipt for detailed politics
The new figures from the Federal Office of Economics and Export Control are the receipt for a policy obsessed with detail: Applications for subsidies for new heat pumps, a reliable indicator of demand, have fallen by 60 percent compared to the previous year.
Many a homeowner will only postpone the purchase of a heat pump. Finally, the traffic light coalition promised higher grants. There is no sign of a shift towards more wood heating, solar thermal energy or district heating. That’s actually the bad news of the numbers: not only is interest in heat pumps declining, but also in building renovations in general.
Reinhard Bingener and Rüdiger Soldt Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 23 Julia Löhr, Berlin Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 76 Andreas Loechel Published/Updated: , Recommendations: 169
That’s not surprising. High inflation is forcing households to set priorities. The prices for both heating and craftsmen reach heights that are hardly in relation to real estate prices in rural regions. In addition, there are plans by the EU to impose refurbishment obligations on houses with high energy consumption.
No wonder that owners wait and see in view of this mixed situation. The federal government should resist the temptation to specifically support the sale of heat pumps with even higher subsidies. Climate-friendly heating can also be done in other ways – and often cheaper in a country with high electricity prices.
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