Warmth pumps have been round for many years, however the know-how has been experiencing a transparent second within the solar in recent times, with world gross sales growing by double digits in each 2021 and 2022, in keeping with the Worldwide Power Company (IEA). Warmth pumps have been featured on MIT Know-how Evaluate’s 2024 listing of 10 Breakthrough Applied sciences. 

Gross sales fell by almost 17% in 2023 within the US, one of many know-how’s largest markets, in keeping with new knowledge from the Air-Conditioning, Heating, and Refrigeration Institute. The slowdown comes after almost a decade of fixed progress. The AHRI knowledge isn’t complete, however the group consists of producers accounting for about 90% of the items bought within the US yearly.

Nevertheless, the decline probably says much less about warmth pumps than it does about the entire HVAC sector, since fuel furnaces and air conditioners noticed even steeper drops. Fuel furnace gross sales declined much more than warmth pumps did in 2023, so warmth pumps truly made up a barely bigger share of gross sales this yr than in 2022.

The broad slowdown displays broader client pessimism amid increased rates of interest and inflation, says Yannick Monschauer, an analyst on the IEA, by way of e mail. 

“Now we have additionally been observing slowing warmth pump gross sales in different elements of the world for 2023,” Monschauer provides. In Europe, a rush to impress, pushed by the power disaster and rising pure fuel costs, has slowed.