Switzerland: Heat pump market
Switzerland has an area of 42,000 km² and a population of 7.87 million. There are 1.623 million buildings with heating (residential, commercial and industrial), of which 1.347 million are purely residential, with 934,000 detached houses. About 12,000 new ones are built per year.Climate: The temperatures in the heating period are between -6 and -12°C, with an annual average of ~4°C.
The forward temperatures of the heating distribution systems are 35-50°C in new buildings and between 50 and 70°C or higher in existing buildings.
28.7% of the total energy consumption in Switzerland is used for heating and water heating (19.1% industry, 16.0% services, 34.8% transport). 56.5% of electricity is produced by hydropower, 38.1% by nuclear power, 4.9% by fossil fuels and 0.5% by
There are about 1.6 million heating systems in operation in Switzerland, comprising 880,000 oil-fired, 280,000 gas-fired, 170,000 electrical resistance heating, 180,000 heat pumps, 80,000 district heating connections and 30,000 wood-fired. The compressors of small to large heat pumps are powered by electricity. The Swiss industry has therefore not only considered the questions of where does the electricity come from and is sufficient electricity available at affordable prices as a result of recent events. “The answer is clearly YES, sufficient electricity is available at reasonable prices,” says Stephan Peterhans, Director of the Fachvereinigung Wärmepumpen Schweiz FWS (Swiss Heat Pump Association). If 100,000 of the currently installed electric central heating systems were replaced with heat pump heating systems, this would release electricity for another 200,000 to 300,000 heat pump heating systems. The sector is currently installing some 20,000 new heat pumps a year to supplement those already in use. This means the industry would have to make at least as many systems as at present for the next 15 to 20 years. This would still not create any electricity supply problems.
Heating system renovation with heat pumps
In the new buildings sector, around 70% of detached houses are equipped with a heat pump, and a quarter of the heat pumps sold replace burners, electric heating systems and increasingly old heat pumps too as part of heating renovation measures. The fact that environment-friendly heating is also gaining more and more importance in the renovation segment is due partly to the new products with higher forward temperatures, which are also suitable for larger buildings. However, renovations must be well thought out, carefully planned and carried out by an expert.The number of heat pumps sold in 2010 was 20,044, which is a slight drop over the previous year.
Of the approx. 20,000 heat pumps, 602 are rated at more than 50 kW. There are 2,429 heat pumps of 20-50 kW, only 339 < 5 kW, the majority of 13,116 are between 5 and 13 kW, and another 3,558 HPs are between 13 and 20 kW. This development emphasizes the importance and potential of the “large heat pump”, as is also seen in other countries.
The heat sources in Switzerland are broken down as follows:
- Air: 59,0 %
- Ground source brine: 37,9 %
- Water: 3,1 %.
This clear trend towards the renovation of existing buildings is also recognizable from the comparison of gas, oil and heat pump systems. Oil-fired boilers are being replaced with heat pumps. Heat pumps dominate the heating market in Switzerland.
The Swiss activities are a model for other countries in Europe. The concentration of the major market players on marketing and lobbying in an association, the activities towards continuously improving the quality standard and the extensive support programmes are the basis for Switzerland’s convincing success in changing to heat pumps for heating and water heating. The Swiss are now concentrating more on renovating existing buildings and their success can be seen from the appreciable growth in the quantity of heat pumps sold. The target is 400,000 heat pumps by 2025, which can save 4million tons of CO2 emissions.
Sources:
www.fws.ch
www.bfe.admin.ch
DKV Heat Pump Symposium in Nürnberg in 2007
IEA HPC Conference in Zurich in 2008
Heat pumps and the energy problem, Extra 7/2011 Elektrotechnik ET/HK-Gebäudetechnik, available at www.fws.ch
Other links:
www.energieforschung.ch
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Download:
IZW country report Switzerland 
