On 27 April, stakeholders and national experts will meet at a Consultation Forum that will be crucial in our quest to climate neutrality: EU member states will discuss new ecodesign rules for space and water heaters. In practical terms, raising the energy-efficiency threshold of these appliances could result in a de facto ban on gas and oil boilers, given that they are much less efficient than heat pumps and other renewable-based systems.
The latest EU Save Energy Plan by the European Commission includes an important provision to decarbonise residential heating. The plan foresees ‘an EU-wide ban on “stand-alone” (non-hybrid) fossil fuel boilers as of 2029’ through the Ecodesign Regulation for space and water heaters.
Ecodesign measures could pave the way for transition from fossil fuels to renewable heating, raising the energy-efficiency requirement of the central non-hybrid appliances up to 110% – and this could result in a de facto ban on gas and oil boilers, and favour the uptake of heat pumps instead.
Heat pumps are devices that can provide heating, cooling and hot water for residential, commercial and industrial use, taking energy from the air, ground or water and turning it into heat or cool air – and they do this conversion in a very efficient way.
The new ecodesign regulation could help the rollout of clean heating, align the heating sector with EU’s energy and climate targets, massively decrease the energy dependency from non-EU countries and bring substantial benefits to citizens – all in one go!
Read our position paper outlining the technical specifications needed to make the change or take a look at the factsheet, which will tell you why ecodesign will make the transition to clean heating happen!
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