Money left undistributed to those considering a heat pump – Recession affects

The sale of geothermal heat pumps this year will be 10 percent lower than last year’s figures, says the executive director of the Finnish Heat Pump Association (SULPU) Jussi Hirvonen. Last year, around 7,000 of them were sold.

The reason for the decline in trade is the general economic situation in Finland. People either don’t have money, or if they do, they don’t dare to use it.

The sale of ground source heat pumps works best for building societies. A new business model in which the seller owns the geothermal heat pump and sells energy from it to housing associations has also increased its popularity there. It makes it possible to switch to geothermal heat without a large one-time cost.

On the other hand, it is quiet on the private home side, although support is available for that side.

“There is still ELY money left, so that doesn’t seem to be enough either. We have said that the reason is that the remaining oil heaters are so cold that they don’t want to switch to geothermal heat, or the houses or their location is such that it is not worth doing this kind of energy renovation anymore,” says Hirvonen.

On the other hand, sales of other types of heat pumps, such as air and air-to-water heat pumps, have also increased this year.

Hirvonen does not expect sales to take off properly before the general willingness to invest improves. It would increase the construction of new housing. Almost half of these comes from geothermal heat. At the same time, people would have more courage to make energy renovations to old houses.

“The houses are already starting to have all kinds of repair debt. And yes, at some point, people will start to believe in the future again,” says Hirvonen.