The 2022 European energy crisis led to a sharp increase in the demand for heat pumps as the price of natural gas skyrocketed. This was particularly notable across Europe’s three largest energy markets: France, Italy and Germany. Subsequently, the market has cooled with a year-on-year decline in sales in 2024 from 2023. There remain solid performers: Norway, Sweden and Finland stand out as leaders on heat pump installation per household.
In monetary terms, trade in heat pumps is modest relative to other technologies such as solar, batteries and electric vehicles. In 2024, the EU was a net importer of heat pumps. Imports of €1.2 billion were matched by exports of €0.75 billion leaving a net import balance of €0.45 billion. The EU’s largest import partner is China, and the two largest export partners are Switzerland and the UK.
Employment in the heat pump sector has grown steadily since 2014. Estimates suggest there were 80,100 people employed in the EU heat pump sector in 2023 (including R&D, manufacturing, construction and operation), with more than half of these jobs in construction. Heat pump jobs make up 8% of the clean technology jobs recorded in the Prognos dataset. Portugal, Sweden and Estonia are the largest employers when considered as a percentage of all jobs.
Heat pump patenting is relatively small compared with larger clean technologies such as batteries, solar and wind. Global patent families rose through the 2000s and peaked around 2010, before declining to fewer than 30 patent families by 2024. Europe remains the largest source of heat pump patenting in the dataset, accounting for around half of global patent families in 2024, while China, Japan, South Korea and the United States each record smaller volumes. Recent patenting is concentrated in heat recovery pumps, with absorption-based systems and hot-water central heating accounting for smaller shares.
