When Andreas Rosen decided to secure the future of his home in Germany’s Moselle wine region, he knew he wanted to upgrade his heating system to a low-carbon heat pump.

“I didn’t want to pass it on to the next generation with an oil system,” says Mr. Rosen. “We wondered what we should do in the long term, and now [a heat pump] was done with the help of the government.

About half of Germany’s 41 million homes currently use gas heating, and another quarter run on oil. In an effort to encourage homeowners to decarbonize their heating, Germany introduced a rebate scheme in January 2023 that offers up to 40% cashback on the purchase and installation of a heat pump.

Heat pumps use energy from air, water or the earth for heating and cooling. They have been proven to work even in extreme temperatures and can significantly reduce energy bills once installed.

The diagram is just one of many subsidies for heat pumps operates throughout Europe and is part of a wider campaign to reduce carbon emissions. From 2024, every new heating system installed in Germany must run on 65% renewable energy.

Bastian Distler, product manager at Ketsch in southwest Germany, was considering switching to a heat pump anyway for environmental reasons, but admits that without the subsidy he could not have done so. Buying and installing can cost between €10,000 and €30,000 (£8,700 to £26,000; $11,000 to $33,000), compared to about €7,000 for a new gas boiler.

“I have two small children, which makes you doubt some things, and you feel better if you do something good for the environment. But, to be very honest, if it was very, very expensive and didn’t pay off, I probably would have done it. didn’t do it,” says Mr. Distler.

While the scheme certainly makes it easier for Germans to invest in modernizing their heating system, sales of heat pumps were already on the rise.

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“Our market grew by 53% last year,” says Martin Zabel, Managing Director of the German Heat Pump Association. “A year earlier it was about 30%, and a year earlier it was about 40%. Thus, we have seen good growth rates for several years now.”

The surge in demand has taken many manufacturers by surprise, causing some homeowners to wait up to 10 months before their new heat pumps can be delivered and installed by skilled workers, who are also in short supply.

Manufacturers like Viessmann are scaling up production to address shortages, as well as investing heavily in training installers, providing educational materials to potential buyers and helping customers navigate often complex subsidy applications.

Günther Schlachter, Viessmann’s vice president of residential power solutions, believes that support and training for installers is the key to decarbonizing home heating.

“Our installer… can consult with his customers [and advise against] the cheapest option for gas or oil to use the subsidies now in place for a future-oriented solution,” says Mr. Schlachter.

Jürgen Fischer, President of Danfoss Climate Solutions, agrees. “Typically, installers focus on gas. For a heat pump, they also need to understand electrical and refrigeration. So it’s important to educate the end user, but it’s even more important to educate the person selling the system, because 80% of the decision-making process happens with the installer.”

Most European countries currently face the same supply, installer training and cost issues, but geography and culture also greatly influence what we expect and demand from our heating systems.

Homes with better thermal insulation are more suitable for heat pump systems, which produce water at lower temperatures for a central heating system. Trying to heat a poorly insulated home with a heat pump will be difficult and unlikely to save you much money.

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So it’s perhaps not surprising that the coldest countries in Europe with the best insulation have the highest heat pump penetration. According to the International Energy Agency60% of buildings in Norway are equipped with a heat pump, followed by Sweden (43%) and Finland (41%).

In Germany this figure is just over 4%, while in the UK it is only 1%.

“Scandinavia is a lot more advanced because they have higher insulation standards and they switched from direct electric heating to heat pumps early because it saved them from day one,” says Thomas Nowak, general secretary of the European Heat Pump Association.

Central Europeans also tend to have high hopes for heating and insulation, while UK residents have long resigned themselves to the need for draft protection devices and massive internal lintels.

Southern countries tend to forgo heating in favor of cooling and use flowing gas boilers to heat water, while Eastern Europeans often rely on solid fuel stoves.

No matter where you live or how old your building is, there is an easy way to find out if your home is suitable for a heat pump.

If you can feel comfortable at home when the flow temperature on your boiler drops to 55°C, then you can install the heat pump right away without retrofitting or upgrading the insulation.

Of course, not everyone can choose how to heat their home. Germany has one of the lowest home ownership rates in Europe, meaning landlords and home management companies must upgrade their heating systems to serve the country’s roughly 40 million tenants.

The German Heat Pump Association is seeing home providers starting to realize that decarbonization will soon begin to affect their bottom line.

“They have a goal to decarbonize their housing stock, because they understand that if they don’t, then in 10 or 20 years they will no longer be able to rent out these apartments,” says Martin Sabel.

Renters who would rather take matters into their own hands may soon have access to smaller-scale heat pump solutions for heating and cooling individual rooms.

American startup Gradient hopes to enter the European market in 2023 and is working on making small, affordable, self-installing heat pumps that sit on window sills and can replace existing air conditioners.

For Viessmann, the long-term vision is to create a holistic, low-carbon, low-cost energy system in which heat pumps, high-quality insulation, solar power, waste heat redirection, other renewable energy sources and smart technologies work in tandem to provide a circular heating and cooling system, vehicle charging and meeting the other energy needs of homeowners and their wider community.

Germany is still a long way from that, but heat pumps are a good step along the way. When asked what homeowners should bring home about heat pumps, Thomas Nowak has a simple answer.

“They work. That’s all. Don’t trust anyone who tells you it’s not.”

In the Mon Valley of western Pennsylvania, steel was once a way of life, one synonymous with the image of rural working communities in the Rust Belt. At its peak in 1910 Pittsburgh one produced 25 million tons, or 60 percent of the country’s total. Busy factories remain along the Monongahela River and around Pittsburgh, but employment has steadily declined for decades.

While President Trump has vowed to return to the idealized vision of American steelmaking that Bruce Springsteen could sing about, the industry has changed since its initial decline four decades ago. Jobs fell by 49 percent between 1990 and 2021, when efficiency gains pushed the sector to its highest capacity in 14 years. Despite ongoing supply chain disruptions and inflation, demand persists growing all over the world, especially in Asia. But even as the demand for this important material grows, so does the need to decarburize its production.

Earlier this month, the Ohio Valley Progressive Institute released study who found that a carefully planned transition to “green” steel, made with renewable energy-generated hydrogen, could be a climate and economic boon. It argues that as countries work towards achieving zero emissions by 2050, a green steel boom in western Pennsylvania could help the US achieve that goal, make its steel industry competitive again, and hire a well-paid industrial workforce.

“A shift to fossil-fuel-free steel production could increase the total number of jobs supported by steel production in the region by 27% to 43% by 2031, preventing projected job losses,” the study notes. “Over the same period, the number of jobs in regions supported by traditional steel production is expected to fall by 30 percent.”

In a world struggling to keep global climate change below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit), the traditional coke-based steelmaking process that uses coal to power furnaces that smelt iron ore remains big. problem. Industry generates 7.2 percent of all carbon emissions worldwide, making it more polluting than the whole European Union. Old-school steel production depends on metallurgical coal, which is high-quality, low-moisture coal that still releases carbon, sulfur dioxide, and other pollutants. About 70 percent of today’s steel is made this way, much of it produced cheaply in countries with lax environmental laws. However, only 30 percent of US manufacturing uses this method.

Technological improvements and the desire to reduce emissions have led to an increase in the use of leftover or “scrap” steel in the manufacturing process. When conventional coke steel products reach the end of their service life, they can be returned to the furnace and recycled. almost endlessly. This reduces the labor required to produce the same quantity and quality of steel as traditional production methods and accounts for about 70 percent of national production.

Scrap melts into electric arc furnace and uses hydrogen, not coke, to process iron ore. This requires less energy than traditional methods, especially if renewables power the furnace and produce hydrogen. Nick Messenger, an economist who worked on the Institute’s study, believes that such an approach could revitalize the Rust Belt by placing the region at the forefront of innovation that the industry must inevitably embrace.

“What we’re actually showing is that by doing this three-step process and doing it all close to home in Pennsylvania,” he said, “every step in this process can create jobs and sustain jobs in the community.” the creation and operation of solar panels and turbines, the operation of electrolyzers for the production of electricity and the production of steel itself.

The study argues that the inertial approach will be in line with current production and employment trends, resulting in a 30 percent job loss by 2031. as much as 43 percent. The study calls western Pennsylvania an ideal place for this transition, given its proximity to clean water, an experienced workforce, and 22,200 watts of wind and solar power potential.

The study notes that for this to work for Mon Valley, growers need to get going as soon as possible. The search for green steel is not only an ideological issue, but also a matter of global economic power. “In a sense, there is a huge new race to get to the first floor,” Messenger said. “When you are first, you attract the types of capital, you attract the types of businesses, entrepreneurs and industries that are causing such a thriving boom around that particular sector.”

The legendary steel mills of the Ohio Valley may be cautious about a carbon-free future. Two years ago US Steel canceled a $1.3 billion investment in the Mon Valley Works complex, citing in part its zero net income goals and the need to shift to arc-welded steel production. Of course, the biggest problem is that although the Mon Valley has huge potential for wind energy, very little is being used. But thanks to the Inflation Reduction Act, federal subsidies and tax breaks could give clean energy developers a boost.

The Biden administration has demonstrated faith in green steel through a series of grant, subsidy, and tax credit programs, including $6 billion in the Inflation Reduction Act to decarbonize heavy industry. But Europe has an advantage. Nascent projects the European Union is dotted in Sweden, Germany and Spain, followed by the UK. Some use hydrogen, but others are experimenting with biochar, electrolysis, or other ways to power the arc process.

In the United States, Boston Metal is experimenting with an oxide electrolysis model, hoping to make the US a leader in green steel technology. This model eliminates demand for coal, creating a chemical reaction that mimics the reaction that turns iron ore into steel. The company is in the process of licensing the process to steelmakers, and Adam Rauwerdinck, the company’s senior vice president of business development, hopes to see its first user by 2026.

Rauwerdinck believes the world is moving away from traditional steelmaking and that US companies will play catch-up if they don’t adapt. Over the past five years, he has seen more and more companies and investors join us, including ArcelorMittal, the world’s second largest steelmaker. He invested $36 million at Boston Metal this year. He believes the investment is a clear sign that the race for green steel has begun and it’s time for manufacturers to embrace the technology – or be left behind.

“Historically, you could build a steel mill next to a coal mine,” he said. “Now you’re going to build it where you have clean energy.”