Martin Sabel, director of the German Heat Pump Association (BWP), sharply criticized the new federal heating law. “Compared with the previous regulations, the new announcements represent a clear step backward” he said to the Funke Media Group newspapers in their Thursday editions. “This creates significant uncertainty for the industry”.
Sabel warned that policymakers must react within the coming years. The sector needs a clear roadmap that will allow it to align the employment of skilled workers and the expansion of production capacity. “Instead of a straightforward path, the current framework forces them into a dual-track situation” he said.
On the contrary, Sabel welcomed the planned subsidies for new heating systems such as heat pumps. “Given the uncertainties about the building energy law, the heating subsidies should rightly signal continuity” he added.
According to the plans for the so‑called “Schwarz‑Rot” coalition, several measures introduced by the traffic‑light coalition will be dropped. These include the requirement that new heating systems must run on renewable energies by at least 65 %, and the ban on old heating boilers that earlier governments had repeatedly tightened. Advisory obligations around buying a heating system will be abolished, and municipalities with fewer than 15,000 inhabitants will no longer be required to conduct municipal heat‑planning.
Instead, a “green gas quota” of up to one percent will be introduced for existing buildings from 2028. The quota will be raised regularly to increase the share of green hydrogen and biogas. New gas and oil heating installations will need ten percent bio‑content from 2029. By 2040 the green share is to rise in three unspecific steps. Heating subsidies are to be guaranteed until 2029, and in 2030 the government will assess whether the climate targets remain attainable under the reform.
