“Demand for heat pumps has collapsed,” says installer Marc Schmitz at “So techt Deutschland”

Demand for heat pumps is collapsing
“Other heating technologies are currently in demand”

January 31, 2024, 5:04 p.m

There are more than a million craft businesses across Germany. They are currently facing a special challenge: they have to be at the forefront of explaining the heating transition to customers. The political bickering has caused problems for them in the past two years, says the owner of the plumbing company of the same name Marc Schmitz. And it didn’t help: Since the Building Energy Act – better known as the Heating Act – was discussed and passed, demand for heat pumps has plummeted, reports Schmitz in the ntv podcast “This is how Germany techs”. One problem: Many people are waiting for municipal heat planning.

ntv.de: What is the mood of the installer industry in the solar energy sector? Would you also like to get on a tractor and demonstrate or is there so much to do that there isn’t time for that?

Marc Schmitz: Of course, some of us would like to get on the tractor, but in the area of ​​construction and building technology we are doing comparatively well. We are on the island of the blessed, as I always say. But what has troubled us over the last two years has been the political squabbles. Not the building energy law in detail, but the uncertainty of the population that there were no clear statements. That led to problems. Added to this were the delivery bottlenecks, some of which we still have. That was difficult.

And what about the customers? Is there a lot of demand for heat pumps?

Demand has collapsed. Of course, we are still installing heat pumps because everyone who builds a new building or renovates it anyway decides to do so. But the great demand that companies and politicians had expected has not materialized. That might happen if municipal heat planning is mandatory. For municipalities with more than 100,000 inhabitants, this will only be the case from June 2026, and for municipalities with fewer than 100,000 inhabitants only from June 2028. Until then, basically everyone can heat existing buildings as they wish. That’s also sensible, you just need qualified advice. Gas systems, gas condensing boiler systems and other technologies are currently in demand again.

What do you recommend when customers ask: What should I install?

We do this in a very technical and factual way, because when you install a heat generator or an air conditioning system, you can easily work with numbers: energy savings, CO2 emissions and so on. This is different than the bathroom. Emotional and subjective things such as optics play a role. When it comes to heat generation, you can give advice based on the property and usage behavior: old building, 140 square meters, number of residents, do the children still live at home, is there underfloor heating… and then a heat pump is suitable or not.

So the heat pump is not always necessarily the best solution?

No, I can say that quite clearly. It often is because there are so many ways to use it. But if you have old radiators or underfloor convectors, a gas condensing boiler sometimes makes more sense. And you can and may still use them.

If you want a heat pump, can you get it again soon or do you have to wait a year because of delivery bottlenecks?

Delivery is now relatively quick. Depending on the system, we see delivery times between three and six weeks. The question is whether the craftsman can do it so quickly. The lead times were once five to six months, but we currently still have three months. What is still difficult to obtain or has longer delivery times, for example, is buffer storage because the insulating materials for it are missing. A heat pump doesn’t just consist of the device itself, but of the aggregates around it: I need a storage system, valves, mixers and things like that.

With Marc Schmitz spoke Frauke Holzmeier and Andreas Laukat. The conversation has been shortened and smoothed for better clarity. You can watch the entire conversation in the podcast “This is how Germany techs” listen.