Welcome to Heat Pumping Technologies Magazine – Issue 2, 2026
Welcome to the second issue of Heat Pumping Technologies Magazine for 2026, devoted in full to the 15th IEA Heat Pump Conference, held at the Hofburg in Vienna from 26 to 29 May 2026. With 812 participants, 367 scientific contributions, 78 chaired sessions, ten workshops and three policy forums, the Vienna conference was the largest in the history of the series. This issue is our attempt to distil four dense days into something you can read in one sitting. All papers from the 15th IEA Heat Pump Conference are available from the HPT TCP database: https://heatpumpingtechnologies.org/publications
The Foreword sets the scene, looking back at what the conference revealed about the state of heat pumping technologies and about the direction the field is taking. It draws out a shift that ran through the whole programme: the central questions are moving away from whether the technology can deliver and towards how it is integrated, operated, financed and regulated.
Under Heat Pumping Technologies News, we report on the five recipients of the Peter Ritter von Rittinger International Heat Pump Award 2026, presented during the conference dinner. Graeme G. Maidment, Thomas Nowak, Renato Lazzarin, Björn Palm and Choyu Watanabe, among them, represent several decades of work across research, industry, standardization and policy on four continents.
The report from the conference itself opens with the plenary opening session, where keynotes from the IEA, IIR, UNIDO, Wien Energie, the Heat Pump and Thermal Storage Technology Center of Japan and the Rocky Mountain Institute framed heat pumps as a matter of energy security and affordability as much as of climate policy. A summary report from the policy forums and workshops follows, covering circularity, multi-family buildings, positive energy districts, residential system design and the industrial deployment of high-temperature heat pumps.
The paper and pitch awards recognise three contributions selected through the conference review process, on frost formation measurement, borehole design uncertainty and hydrocarbon high-temperature heat pumps.
The Report from Selected Technical Sessions is the longest part of this issue. It is organised around the six key areas of research that shaped the Vienna programme: decarbonisation of the heating and cooling sector; innovative heat pump applications for industry and commerce; smart grids, digitalisation and system integration; technologies for urban areas and existing buildings; policy, market mechanisms and regulatory framework; and standards, certification and quality assurance. Each report draws on the papers presented in Vienna and attempts to identify not only what was shown but what it collectively means.
Finally, the Closing Ceremony section reports the conference in numbers and announces the destination for 2029.
Enjoy your reading!
Dr Metkel Yebiyo, Editor
Heat Pump Centre
The central communication activity of the Technology Collaboration Programme on Heat Pumping Technologies (HPT TCP)
Contact: metkel.yebiyo@ri.se
