China Leads The World In The Adoption Of Heat Pumps

According to a Bloomberg News website report on December 1, China leads the world in the adoption of heat pumps.

The reduction in the use of natural gas in Europe has attracted widespread attention, but the world's largest market for new heat pump sales is China, according to a new report from the International Energy Agency.

While North America has the largest number of installed heat pumps in homes and the European Union is the fastest-growing market (heat pump sales rose 35% last year, compared with a global increase of 15.1%), China has the largest number of new installations, the IEA said . China also has the largest workforce to install heat pumps and has the largest market share in heat pump production globally.

"China has the largest number of installers because most of the building stock, especially in southern China, relies on heat pumps for cooling in summer and heating in winter," the report states.

The report explained that air source heat pumps, which extract heat from the air to heat water for electric heaters or floor heating, are the most popular heat pumps in the world; while in China, ground source heat pumps are often used to replace traditionally dominant heat pumps. coal-fired heating system. Ground source heat pumps work by absorbing heat from the ground rather than the air. They are more expensive to install but also run more efficiently.

Both the European Union and North America rely heavily on natural gas for home heating. The largest single source of heating in China is the current district heating network, where a central source is used to heat or cool many buildings. Home heating systems tend to be based on electricity, coal and natural gas.

Last year, about 10% of global building heating was provided by heat pumps.

While both Europe and China are turning to heat pumps as part of a decarbonization plan, China is also working to reduce its reliance on coal for domestic heating to improve air quality. Raw coal, which is often burned for heating, especially in northern China, is cheap but pollutes heavily, leading to poor air quality in winter. According to data from the International Energy Agency, the Chinese government has introduced a series of measures to subsidize electric heating, and China's dependence on coal for building heating has been reduced by half in the past five years.