EU plans new ban on heaters

After a heated argument, the federal government has just agreed on the new building energy law. The EU is also preparing a directive – which would make the traffic light law practically superfluous.

Brussels – It is not only in Germany that climate-neutral heating is being discussed intensively. Also in Brussels worked on different laws, which should make it possible to achieve the climate protection goals by 2050. The German Liquid Gas Association (DVFG) is now drawing attention to a draft law that could make the federal government’s plans superfluous. With the entry into force of the EU directive, gas, oil and electric boilers would have to disappear from the market from 2029.

EU directive for heating appliances: the most important points

According to EU plans, the new ecodesign regulation for space heaters and combination heaters is to come into force on September 1, 2025. It is about which heaters can be brought onto the market in the future. So it’s not about the existing heaters having to be replaced directly.

The current draft IPPEN.MEDIA is available, should go into consultation this week. The key points in the law are:

• Heating systems with an efficiency of less than 115 percent may no longer be placed on the market from September 1, 2029. This applies to all heating systems except heat pumps and hybrid heating systems.
• From 2029, pure oil, gas and coal heaters may no longer be placed on the market – not even as spare parts. The only exception: If they are placed on the market in combination with a heat pump or a solar thermal system (i.e. hybrid heaters).
• New heaters must show the consumer at all times how efficiently the system is currently working. This data must be kept for at least 24 months and made available to the consumer upon request. This data should only be available to the end user.

The EU directive would thus be more far-reaching than the building energy law of the traffic light coalition. According to the GEG, owners are allowed to have broken fossil fuel heaters repaired and also to replace them for a transitional period of up to 13 years. With the EU directive, the latter would no longer be possible from September 1, 2029. In addition, the EU directive eliminates the exceptions for over 80-year-olds, social benefit recipients and cases of hardship provided for by the traffic light.

Excluded from the EU directive are those gas heaters that “mainly use energy from biomass” to generate heat. However, the draft makes it clear that the exception does not apply to gas heaters that “are also suitable for the use of fossil (liquid) gases”. Also excluded are heating systems that use solid fuel, which usually means wood.

EU draft undermines openness to technology

“The current status of the draft results in a ban on placing individually installed boilers on the market from 2029 – including those for operation with renewable gases,” says the DVFG. According to the association, the intended openness to technology of the GEG would thus be undermined. Heaters using hydrogen are not mentioned in the EU directive.

According to the association, the exception relating to energy from biomass is only a theoretical option. “Biomethane, for example, is added to the natural gas network, which is still partly fossil fuel,” explains a spokesman for the DVFG. “Accordingly, the devices in question always require approval for conventional gases as well, or in the case of biogenic liquid gas there is no difference in the product, so that specialized approval just for the ‘biogenic variant’ is not possible at all.” Green gases is therefore ineffective in the EU directive.

Efficiencies of heaters

The efficiency of a heating system describes the relationship between the energy supplied and the heat that can be used. The higher the efficiency, the less energy is lost in heat production. In heating systems that are more than 100 percent efficient, not only is the energy supplied converted into heat, but also additional energy that is generated when the system is working. In the case of condensing boilers, these are often exhaust gases that the heaters can convert into additional heat.

This table shows that basically everything except the heat pump should be phased out by 2029. However, since there are exceptions, wood and pellet heating systems are probably not affected. All other heating systems, on the other hand, do.