What’s it like to live with a heat pump? The real consumer story

Heat pumps are no longer a technology of the future – they are already heating and cooling homes across Europe today. It is now firmly established that heat pumps are key enablers of achieving Europe’s energy and climate goals and in times of wars and crisis, they make Europe less dependent on foreign fossil fuel imports.
 

However, misleading information found in media and online has led to a distorted and false perception of heat pumps, but it is consumers’ lived experience that can tell us the truth about this technology.

This report explores the benefits that heat pumps can bring to people’s homes and what policymakers can learn from that experience. After all, the full potential of the heat pump is still yet to be realised and making it a more widely-used heating technology must be done in a way that benefits consumers.

Therefore, we asked consumers across Europe about what it’s really like to live with a heat pump? How did it affect their thermal comfort? Did their energy bills decrease? This report draws on real-life consumer experiences and proposes several concrete recommendations as to what policymakers can do with them.