The German government voted on a bill on Wednesday to ban most oil and gas heating boilers in new and oil buildings from 2024 as part of a plan to reduce emissions.
The ruling coalition in Germany has decided that nearly all new heating systems should run on 65% renewable energy, with exemptions for homeowners aged over 80 and for households with the lowest incomes.
Industry associations and the German public disagree with the planned ban. A Forsa survey commissioned by RTL and ntv showed this week that 78% of Germans do not approve of the bill, and only 18% think the decision to ban oil and gas heating systems is the right one.
Most of the opposition to electric heating running on renewable energy stems from concerns that heating prices would rise. A total of 62% of respondents in the survey expect prices to increase if heating comes from renewables, while only 12% expect their heating bills to decline.
According to the draft bill approved by the government and seen by Reuters, a switch to renewables for heating could cost Germans around $10 billion (9.16 billion euros) every year until 2028.
Last month, the German heating industry said that the government's plan to install electric heat pumps instead of oil and gas boilers shouldn't be rushed as fully electric heating systems require massive grid investments.
Germany plans to have more and more electric heating pumps installed to reduce CO2 emissions from buildings and reduce its dependence on oil and natural gas for heating.
However, associations in the heating pumps industry warn that ditching oil and gas boilers too soon would be both unrealistic and an enormous financial challenge. Germany should be flexible in allowing hybrid pumps and not ban oil and gas boilers too soon, the industry associations say.
In 2022, heat pump sales in Germany jumped by 53%, according to figures from the Federation of German Heating Industry (BDH) released earlier this year.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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Comments
so, reopening 150+ coal power stations, closing down the last 3 nuclear power stations, encourage renewables????
massive disconnect by the german government. to cover just the coal and nuclear plant existing output would require, i think i remember, ten times current installed renewable capacity. about €1tr worth.
to cover increased use due to this ban...who knows how much. Germany cannot install that capacity so will end up using their coal power stations even more resulting in not only gases but particulate polluting too. absolutely ridiculous