Heat pump markets growing in China and Japan

China’s air source heat pump market has been growing rapidly since the beginning of 2017. Air source heat pumps for space heating increased their share of the country’s heating equipment market to 33%, up from 25% in 2016. The annual market share of air source heat pumps in 2017 is expected to almost equal that of boilers. A region that has seen a particularly marked increase is the north of China: the market share of air source heat pumps rose from 10% in the first half of 2016 to 40% in the first half of 2017. This growth mainly came from the space heating market. In the south, on the other hand, air source heat pump water heaters are on the rise, with significant growth in the Hunan, Zhejiang, Fujian and Guangdong provinces. Air source heat pump technology could help China reduce its energy consumption and high levels of pollution.

Meanwhile, the Heat Pump & Thermal Storage Technology Center of Japan (HPTCJ) is promoting the usage of heat pumps in an attempt to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. HPTCJ has estimated the possible reduction in consumption of primary energy and GHG emissions that would result from an expansion of the use of heat pumps, replacing boilers in both the private sector and the industrial sector. In light of the Paris Climate Agreement goal of limiting temperature rise to 2 °C, the expanded use of heat pumps could account for approximately 7% of the reduction target of 950 million t-CO2 by 2050. In addition, Japanese development of heat pump technology could have reverberations around the world: high efficiency heat pumps manufactured in Japan could go on to be widely used internationally, which would lead to even greater CO2 reductions and energy savings.

Source: JARN September 25, 2017 and JARN October 25, 2017