IEA (2024), The Future of Heat Pumps in China, IEA, Paris https://www.iea.org/reports/the-future-of-heat-pumps-in-china, Licence: CC BY 4.0
Graphic: Policy challenges for heat pump deployment in China
Key policy challenges for heat pumps
Buildings
- Affordability challenges, particularly for rural households
- Limited targeted subsidy support for heat pumps
- Low awareness of benefits among residential consumers
- Energy efficiency labels inconsistent across technologies
- Absence of specific long-term efficiency benchmark
- Limited thermal performance requirements in buildings
- Poor insulation and low airtightness in rural areas
Industry
- Set targets for heat pump deployment in line with China’s 30-60 targets
- Phase down subsidies for fossil fuel heating technologies, freeing up resources for promoting clean heating solutions
- Limited focus on heat pumps in industry efficiency plans
- Few incentives for waste heat recovery in light industry, chemicals and pulp & paper sectors
- Low awareness and adoption of heat pumps in industry
- High costs for installation, operations and maintenance
- Difficult to standardise; need for tailoring to specific processes
- Limited R&D and demonstration projects
Supply chain
- Lack of integration in national energy and carbon neutrality plans
- Absence of specific long-term targets and definitions for heat pump deployment
- Insufficient data collection on deployment and market trends
- Lack of incentives for manufacturers and utilities
- Skills gaps for installation, operations and maintenance
- Limited consideration of refrigerants in heat pump design
- Distribution grid bottlenecks and limited availability of dynamic electricity pricing
There are multiple technology, policy, financing and behavioural challenges that could limit adoption of heat pump technologies at a broader scale.