EU regulations are like a hand tightening around the throat of entrepreneurship. What was still normal and even desirable yesterday is not only passé today, but also forbidden. Until recently, modern, domestic gas condensing furnaces, also subsidized from EU funds (as being eco-friendly), have just landed on the list of unnecessary and downright harmful devices. Eurocrats want to get rid of them as soon as possible.
The heating equipment market in Poland, including gas furnaces, is one of the largest in Europe. It can be one of the reasons to be proud of the resilience of our economy. Many companies built on Polish capital, often family-owned, operate very dynamically on it. A significant acceleration in this market occurred especially in 2018. Then it slowed down a bit as a result of the pandemic lockdowns, only to record another development leap in 2022. The sale of increasingly modern, efficient and low-emission furnaces was fueled by local anti-smog resolutions, which declared war on the so-called smokers.
Gas stoves are no longer ecological
The government program Clean Air allowed for public funding for the replacement of heat sources and thermal modernization of the house. Of course, for such replacements that were considered ecological. Since 2018, Poles have replaced over 388 thousand heat sources using the program. The largest share of the market, over 42 percent, was taken by gas condensing boilers. In 2021 alone, 69.2 thousand of them were installed under the government program, and the total number of newly installed gas boilers reached over 410 thousand.
Gas stoves have gained recognition among customers not only because of their relatively affordable price and high efficiency. Also as an ecological alternative to smoky stoves. After all, the Clean Air program, which has supported their sales so much, was implemented by the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management itself. And also from EU funds.
The Green Deal doesn’t like gas
Today, the Polish market is home to condensing gas furnaces from both Polish and foreign manufacturers. Their installation and subsequent maintenance are performed by specialist companies with appropriate authorizations. Also Polish.
Both manufacturers and sellers of gas boilers currently have serious reasons to be concerned, because the European Union has just issued a ban on the installation of not only coal or oil furnaces, but also gas furnaces. That is, those that were recently considered eco-friendly for the same Union. Today, they are no longer so, so war has been declared on them. The ban on gas furnaces in public buildings owned by the state or local government is to apply from 2028. In private buildings, it will come into force just as quickly, two years later. These are the latest assumptions of the EPBD directive regarding the so-called energy performance of real estate. This directive is just the beginning of the implementation of the Green Deal, which in turn is part of the program for reducing “bad emissions”, the so-called Fit for 55. The EU wants all gas boilers to disappear from all Community countries within sixteen years at the latest. This includes, of course, Poland. It is hard to imagine a greater absurdity.
So what will we burn?
The Association of Producers and Importers of Heating Equipment (SPIUG) points out that, at least theoretically, the ban could generate interest in alternatives to gas from the grid, such as liquefied gas boilers or heat pumps. However, SPIUG itself probably does not really believe in this, because rising electricity prices are already starting to kill the pump market. Those without power from the grid simply do not work. It is also easy to notice that even despite the withdrawal of subsidies from the National Fund for Environmental Protection and Water Management for gas furnaces, their installation is still about twice as cheap as the installation of heat pumps. An alternative is still heating with pellets, which the Eurocrats have happily recognized as an ecological fuel.