The quality of statistical data provided from fifteen European countries differs considerably. Only eight countries can provide (more or less) reliable statistics.
No official data from Southern Europe are available at all. A major problem for these countries is to draw a distinction between reversible HPs primarily used for heating purposes and air-conditioners with heat pump function. Some million air-conditioners with heat pump function predominantly used for cooling purposes in Southern Europe are disregarded in this statistics.
Results
Total sales of space heating HPs (see Table): Over 307.000 units (including heat recovery and reversible HPs, excluding tap water only HPs).
Increase of sales vs 2004 of the most important markets (excluding Greece, Italy, Spain): 16% in average. Strongest market increase to register in Finland (76%).
Sweden is further on the clearly dominating market. However, the market increase declined remarkable from 47% (2003/04) to only 1% (2004/05): Over 100.000 units sold in 2005, 61% of them heating only HPs (mostly brine/water HPs; including heat recovery HPs).
Heating only: Ground source HPs are still the dominating systems in many countries. However, air-to-water systems show stronger increase.
Reversible HPs (air-source HPs predominantly used for heating purposes) are the dominating system in Finland (76%) and play a strong role also in Sweden (39%).
D-A-CH countries: Obviously not yet a remarkable market for reversible HPs
Conclusions
Joint efforts to improve reliability and completeness of data are required.
Major inaccurateness of statistical data imply the categories "heat recovery HPs" and "reversible HPs"
Main emphasis is to be placed on Southern European countries and information concerning stock of installed systems.
