New IEA Report: The Future of Heat Pumps in China
Heating is a very important service to society that needs to be decarbonised further. Thus heating technologies chosen in China to reach carbon neutrality by 2060 have a major influence on global heating trends. Electrification through heat pumps can provide a key lever for decarbonising heating, particularly since sales have increased in recent years in China. The report released by the IEA on March 27 provides an overview of the status of heat pumps in buildings, industry and district heating in China, and examines potential to further accelerate their deployment.
This report prepared by the International Energy Agency (IEA) in collaboration with the Tsinghua University Building Energy Research Center (BERC) offers a thorough examination of China’s heat pump market prospects and deployment, with an emphasis on buildings and industrial sectors. It examines heat pump technology’s present state and potential directions while accounting for several variables, including local climate, building energy efficiency, and governmental backing.
Importance of Heat Pumps in China.
In order to reach the ambitious goals of the Announced Pledges Scenario (APS), the report highlights the importance of heat pumps in providing hot water for domestic usage and space heating, estimating that “100 GW of heat pumps would need to be installed in buildings every year until 2050.” It draws attention to the rising need for heat pumps in both urban and rural regions, which is being fueled by laws that support clean heat solutions and attempt to improve air quality. It emphasizes how important heat pumps are to reaching energy efficiency and cutting carbon emissions. It makes the point that by 2050, the average room heating intensity will have significantly decreased because of strict building energy requirements and aggressive retrofit rates. It goes on to go over the features of various kinds of water heaters and investigates the growing significance of heat pump water heaters, especially in new construction and areas with harsh winters and intense summers. It addresses the benefits of heat pump water heaters over conventional water heaters and the obstacles that prevent their widespread use, like greater initial costs and difficult installation procedures.
Global Market Trends
The report offers insights into global heat pump sales and market trends, emphasizing that a decline in natural gas prices, a slowdown in the building industry, and uncertainties surrounding heat pump policy and support programs resulted in a slight decline in global heat pump sales in 2023 by 5%. The research also examines the share of heating needs covered by heat pumps, projecting an increase in the deployment of heat pumps in both residential and non-residential buildings by 2030 and 2050.
Implications of Heat Pump Deployment
The report states that switching to decentralised heat pumps in buildings would result in a decrease in the amount of fossil fuels used for heating, which would lower greenhouse gas emissions by 30%. It emphasizes that heat pumps classified as high-temperature heat pumps are ones that can generate heat at temperatures higher than 100°C. It also goes into great detail on the technical details of these pumps, including their technology readiness level (TRL). The implications of heat pump deployment for lowering direct emissions for heating in China are also discussed in the report. it also emphasizes how important grid decarbonization is to China’s efforts to cut emissions from heat pump use.
Policy Solutions
In order to encourage the use of heat pumps in China, the report suggests a number of policy measures, including creating a national action plan for heating decarbonization, enforcing stricter energy efficiency requirements for heat pumps, updating and standardizing labels for various heating technologies, and investigating novel business models for heat pump services. To free up funds for greener, more effective heating options, it also emphasizes the significance of awareness efforts and the gradual elimination of subsidies for heating based on fossil fuels. The report emphasizes how heat pumps can help integrate distributed renewable energy technologies and advocates for full retrofit packages that combine heat pump deployment with envelope improvements.
Heat Pump and Emission Savings
The potential of heat pumps to gradually increase emissions savings from electrification of end use is covered in this report. It highlights how, when used in conjunction with distributed technologies and energy storage, heat pumps may facilitate a larger usage of renewable energy sources. To promote a more seamless transition towards the integration of technology that maximize the consumption of renewable electricity, the report highlights the significance of coordinating policies and programs centred on clean heating and clean energy, using the activities in China as an example.
It discusses how off-grid and distributed solar solutions are growing quickly in China and shows how they can be used with other environmentally friendly technology like heat pumps and electric vehicle charging. It claims that power produced throughout the day with solar photovoltaic systems may be saved for use during evening peak demand hours when heat pumps and an appropriate storage buffer are paired. As to the report, China ought to explore the possibilities of Efficient Grid-Interactive Buildings in both urban and rural regions where rooftop photovoltaic systems are either operational or slated for greater implementation in the future.
Coordinated policy initiatives to fully utilize heat pumps in China’s building and industrial sectors are also covered in the article. It highlights that to guarantee energy efficiency and encourage the adoption of clean heating technology, policies created to support heat pumps should take advantage of synergies with and be integrated into China’s carbon neutrality planning processes. It also discusses how important it is to provide precise standards for the categorization of clean heating systems used in industry, buildings, and district heating in order to assist decision-makers in providing financing and support for the lowest-emission technologies. To comprehend the potential for heat pumps and more extensive heating decarbonization, it also addresses the necessity of improving data oversight and using heating surveys.
The report places a strong emphasis on establishing goals to boost heat pump sales and deployment in domestic heating markets as well as on job creation and skill development in the manufacturing, installation, operations, maintenance, and recycling of heat pump-related products. Finally, it addresses the implications of the electrical system and demand flexibility for the electrification of heating and heat pump deployment in the future. It emphasizes the necessity of designing and implementing heat pumps with demand-side preparedness in mind to secure future power system interactivity. All things considered, the paper offers a thorough examination of the opportunities and difficulties related to the application of heat pumps in several industries, highlighting legislative fixes and factors to maximize their efficiency.
Source: https://www.iea.org/reports/the-future-of-heat-pumps-in-china
HPT TCP contributed, via Heat Pump Centre, to this report by review and submission of comments.
China one of the members of the of the Technology Collaboration Programme on Heat Pumping Technologies (HPT TCP) by IEA
China is one of the 20 member countries of HPT TCP by IEA and participates actively in several of the international collaboration project (annexes), i.e. Annex 53 Advanced Cooling/Refrigeration Technologies Development, Annex 58 High-Temperature Heat Pumps, Annex 59 Heat Pumps for Drying and Annex 62 Heat Pumps for Multi-Family Residential Buildings in Cities.
On March 20 the Member Country Report from China was presented. One of the main takeaways was that the application of heat pump technology represents the future direction of advanced heating development in China. Take part of the full presentation here!