The heat pump has long been the number one heating system in new buildings. However, gas heating still accounts for a significant share. Gas customers must expect new price hikes.
New buildings in Germany are mostly heated with heat pumps, but a fifth of new residential buildings still use gas heating – even though this makes little financial sense. Consumers are not only getting off cheaper with an efficient heat pump right now. The financial risk will remain high in the future, too. The price of gas fluctuates and there is a risk of further price increases.
“The European gas markets will remain volatile,” predicts gas market expert Sebastian Gulbis to ntv.de. “For example, extreme demand-side events such as a cold winter or supply-side infrastructure failures can lead to sharply rising prices and price peaks in the short term.”
Not only the weather and technical problems can drive the price of gas up further, but political uncertainties also remain, as the managing director of the energy consulting company Enervis explains: the outcome of the US elections and the resulting handling of future gas exports from the USA. It is also unclear whether Russia will continue to supply gas to Austria and Italy via Ukraine in the future.
Gas prices are rising again
The gas price, which had exploded as a result of the war in Ukraine, had stabilized again – thanks to the mild winters and the resulting well-filled gas storage facilities, the economical consumption of households and companies, and the good supply via Norway. However, the higher demand for liquefied gas in Asia is now also pushing up European prices, as Gulbis reports. And “after a decline at the long end, futures prices are rising again.”
According to the Building Energy Act Gas boilers can also be installed in the future, but with a growing share of renewable energies such as biogas or hydrogen. This is another uncertainty factor when it comes to prices. “It is uncertain at what prices these green gases, which are currently in short supply, will be available in the future,” says Gulbis. It is also unclear how the CO2 price will develop “and whether politicians will intervene if CO2 prices are too high.”
In existing buildings, gas heating can still be cheaper than a heat pump and possibly the necessary renovation of the building shell, as the gas market expert clarifies. “In new buildings, however, the economic advantage of gas heating over heat pumps is questionable, taking into account the available subsidies.”
Electricity is also becoming more expensive
Electricity prices are also expected to rise in the foreseeable future, as electricity market expert Mirko Schlossarczyk, also Managing Director at Enervis, explained. “In addition to the wholesale price, the so-called system costs – i.e. network charges, levies, taxes, duties – are a significant and already dominant part of the end customer price,” Schlossarczyk explained to ntv.de. “In view of the enormous future costs of the energy transition, which are to be financed largely through these system costs, a noticeable increase in the end customer price can already be expected in the future.”
With heat pump tariffs, lower fees and charges currently mean that prices are cheaper than with household electricity tariffs. “We need to keep a close eye on how the legislator and regulatory authorities react and what decisions are made,” says Schlossarczyk. Without the current price advantages, operating heat pumps economically would be more challenging.
Savings of 600 euros possible with heat pump
How expensive heating will be in the future will therefore depend heavily on the future federal governments. If the CDU/CSU wins the election, it wants to overturn the so-called Heating Act, i.e. the changes to the Building Energy Act. However, what exactly the CDU would change has not even been decided within the party. And according to plan, it will still be more than a year until the next federal election.
Currently, single-family home residents can save 600 euros per year with an efficient heat pump, according to a sample calculation from the comparison portal Verivox. However, consumers must take into account the higher purchase costs compared to a gas heating system. There are subsidies from the state for installing a heat pump. The higher purchase costs are amortized after around ten to fifteen years, as the Rhineland-Palatinate consumer advice center calculates. For individual households, experts recommend that consumers seek energy advice on which heating combination is best.