Moving backwards during the energy transition in the construction sector. homeowners no longer participate. The transition to climate-friendly heating systems, including energy-efficient renovations, has been a setback. Oil heating is booming anyway, and hardly anyone wants to know anything about a building shell that insulates heat and cold equally.
This is evident in recent reports from heating engineers and building renovators. The most dramatic news. Heating manufacturer Viessmann, of all companies, reports short-term performance. Some of the 4,000 employees at the Viessmann plants in Allendorf, Hesse, which have been owned by the US carrier group since their spectacular sale early last year and operate under the name Viessmann Climate Solution, have had to work for a short time from today. week, as a spokesperson confirmed to this editorial team. The event covers both the actual heating engineer and the administrative area and is originally scheduled to run until the end of August. Viessmann itself held a seven percent stake in the American company as both parties expected more from the deal than has now become apparent in the first year and a half. You can see the background of Viessmann’s deal with Carrier in the video.
Other industry giants have already logged short-term jobs
Besides Viessmann, other industry giants such as Vaillant and Stibel Eltron already has a short-term job must be registered. A year and a half ago, everyone bet on the opposite trend and invested or, like the family business Viessmann, sold the space at a high price, which was also full from the investor’s point of view. Carrier Global came to the Hessians with the argument that the Americans have a lot of experience in mass production, and they need that now.
But then everything turned out differently. It Business week Max Wiesmann said a few weeks ago: “What’s going on around them? Heat pump What has been done cannot be surpassed in terms of drama. The technology that has been proven to be more effective and has advantages has been thrown away. The myths that have been spread, the polarization and the populism that has taken place have amazed me.”
Almost a third fewer systems were sold in the first quarter
Viessmann’s disbelief is based on figures that make heating engineers shudder. they sold almost a third fewer systems in Germany in the first three months of 2024 than a year ago. Sales fell 29 percent to 217,500 systems, the Federal Association of the German Heating Industry (BDH) said. Sales of heat pumps alone fell by more than half (minus 52 percent), and sales of biomass systems fell by up to 81 percent. The decrease in gas heating was 17 percent. Oil heating alone, the most emitting alternative, increased by 27 percent to 27,500 systems.
According to current estimates, only 200,000 of the 500,000 annual heat pumps that Green federal climate minister Robert Habeck has set as an industry target will remain if it is implemented. Recently, during the citizens’ discussion, Habek himself admitted that his measures regarding the heating law exceeded the mark.
“I went too far,” Habeck said
The deputy prime minister continued that the counter pressure of the law was immediate. “The debate on the Energy Building Act, ie how we will heat up in the future, was frankly a test of how ready society is. Climate protection – if it becomes concrete, you have to endure it.” Heating engineers are now on the sidelines in Habek’s testing, receiving fewer and fewer orders amid opaque political debate and funding that is still a long way off.
But they are not the only ones who suffer. The Federal Association of Energy-Efficient Building Envelopes, the trade union for energy-efficient home renovations, found in a recent survey that a majority (36.3 percent) of respondents believed no further reductions in CO2 emissions were necessary. “Fear of change and loss of well-being is clearly greater than interest in climate protection,” says Jan Peter Hinrichs, executive director of the federal association, adding: such important projects as energy-efficient renovation of existing buildings.”
