France ends gas heaters subsidies, boosts heat pumps in bid to cut Russia reliance

By Geert De Clercq

PARIS – France will finish authorities subsidies for the set up of latest residential gasoline heaters and enhance help for renewable power heating in a bid to additional scale back reliance on Russian fossil gas exports, the atmosphere minister mentioned on Wednesday.

As a part of a authorities “resilience plan” aimed toward serving to households and corporations address the financial fallout of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, France desires to finish its imports of Russian gasoline and oil by 2027.

To cut back gasoline demand, France will reform its “MaPrimeRenov” subsidy scheme to speed up the substitute of fossil fuel-fired heaters with renewable heating reminiscent of warmth pumps and biomass heaters, together with hybrid methods.

From April 15 till finish 2022, it would improve by 1,000 euros ($1,102) the subsidy for “virtuous” residential heating and can scrap subsidies for brand spanking new gasoline heater installations.

“To be able to now not encourage folks to stay depending on gasoline, help for brand spanking new gasoline heater installations will probably be stopped,” atmosphere minister Barbara Pompili advised a information convention.

She added that by combining the renovation premium with different authorities help measures reminiscent of power certificates, households — particularly low-income households — will profit by changing fossil fuel-fired heaters with renewable power methods.

“In the long term, we need to wean ourselves from Russian fossil power and from fossil power general,” she mentioned.

The marketplace for warmth pumps — which use electrical energy to extract energy from the air or the bottom — has been rising rapidly throughout Europe lately.

The European Warmth Pump Affiliation estimates that in 2021, warmth pumps represented greater than 25% of annual gross sales in a complete heater market of seven million items, with warmth pumps quick turning into the usual answer for brand spanking new buildings and more and more getting used for renovations.

The electrification of residential heating is a key plank of European Union insurance policies to decarbonise Europe’s buildings https://www.eprg.group.cam.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/2037-Textual content.pdf.

By way of its state atmosphere and power company ADEME, France can even present 150 million euros of latest help to assist corporations and municipalities change to renewable heating, notably by switching warmth networks to biomass.

($1 = 0.9075 euros)

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