EU to push members to cut tax rate below duty on gas, with 10%+ surge in sales also put down to fallout from Iran war.
Sales of residential heat pumps jumped across Europe in the first six months of the year as the Iran war sent oil and gas prices rocketing and some countries lowered electricity taxes.
Homeowners bought 1.16m heat pumps across 12 European countries, up from 1.05m in the first half of 2025, according to the European Heat Pump Association.
Iran’s de facto closure of the strait of Hormuz, a shipping passage, severely disrupted the flow of oil and gas shipments and sent the price of crude oil as high as $126 a barrel in late April.
Soon after the US-Israeli attacks on Iran on 28 February that started the war, the European Commission published plans to encourage EU governments to lower electricity taxes and speed up the shift from fossil fuels oil and gas to renewable sources of energy.
Rising energy prices and electricity tax changes have fuelled the growth in heat pump sales so far this year, said the EHPA, which has long argued that the popularity of the heating systems depends heavily on the price of electricity.
Heat pump sales have risen in European countries where electricity taxes have been cut, the EHPA said. In Germany, a subsidy scheme has led to heat pumps being the No 1 heating tech being installed, it added.
The 12 countries covered in the data are Austria, Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal and Sweden.