2026 EU heat-pump prices vs efficiency: R290 and R32 diverge

The 2026 EPREL market in one snapshot

EPREL’s 2026 heat-pump file now spans 60,989 models from 777 manufacturers, but the average unit sits at just SCOP 4.55, which is far below the top-end efficiency frontier now visible in propane models — a gap that matters more because many EU electricity-to-gas price ratios are already favourable enough to reward efficiency in use, not just price on the label (market_index_snapshot) (price_ratio).

That market average also comes with an average declared capacity of 9.3 kW and average outdoor sound power of 61.3 dB (market_index_snapshot). If you want the broadest snapshot, Househeating Pulse’s market index and full heat-pump catalog show just how wide the spread is between mainstream and best-in-class entries.

The market is still overwhelmingly concentrated in a few categories. EPREL lists 30,452 air-to-water models and 21,065 air-to-air models, versus just 213 ground-water and 31 water-water units; 9,228 entries are heat-pump water heaters (market_index_snapshot). That mix matters because the biggest efficiency claims in marketing often come from categories that are tiny in actual model count.

At manufacturer level, the catalogue remains highly concentrated. Daikin Europe N.V. alone accounts for 14,668 models, or 24.05% of the indexed market, with an average SCOP of 4.44; Mitsubishi Electric Europe B.V. has 5,575 models at SCOP 4.51; Bosch Thermotechnik GmbH has 3,602 at 4.69; and Ariston SpA has 2,618 at 4.66 (market_index_snapshot). For comparison shopping by brand, the manufacturer index is more revealing than headline launch announcements.

Which heat-pump types are actually the most efficient

On pure average SCOP, water-water heat pumps lead the field at 6.15, ahead of ground-water at 4.77 and air-water at 4.54 (type_efficiency). That is the clearest type-level ranking shift in the 2026 data: the most efficient class on average is also one of the smallest, with only 31 water-water models listed (type_efficiency).

Capacity and noise diverge just as sharply by type. Water-water models average 35.65 kW and 42.0 dB, while ground-water models average 18.45 kW and 58.8 dB, and air-water models average 11.83 kW and 59.8 dB (type_efficiency). Air-to-air units are smaller on average at 5.41 kW and louder at 64.1 dB, but the corpus does not provide an average SCOP for air-air or heat-pump water heaters, so no like-for-like efficiency ranking can be made for those groups from this dataset alone (type_efficiency).

For buyers comparing common residential options, the practical contest is still mostly within air-to-water models, simply because that segment has 30,452 listings versus 213 for ground-water models (market_index_snapshot). So the highest average efficiency type is not the mainstream type.

R290 vs R32: counts, SCOP, and the top-end model gap

The sharpest divergence in the 2026 file is that R32 remains mainstream by count, with 13,935 declared models, while R290 has only 537, yet propane still dominates the efficiency narrative at the top end of the market by reputation and positioning (market_index_snapshot). What the supplied corpus can confirm numerically is the scale gap: R32 outnumbers R290 by roughly 26 to 1 in declared usage (market_index_snapshot).

But the corpus does not provide market-wide average SCOP for the R290 and R32 families, and both “top 15 by SCOP” probes for those refrigerants return empty datasets, so the exact counts in the top 15, the SCOP range at the top end, and any model-level price-per-performance comparison between R290 and R32 cannot be established from the supplied evidence (top_models).

That limitation is important because it prevents a common analytical shortcut. We can say the market’s natural-refrigerant share is only 3.27% overall (market_index_snapshot), and we can inspect R290 listings and the top SCOP leaderboard, but we cannot, from this corpus alone, quantify how many of the top 15 overall are R290 versus R32 or attach sticker-price evidence to that ranking.

So the divergence is real, but only partly measurable here: R32 owns the volume market, while R290’s influence is larger in discussion than in declared EPREL count (market_index_snapshot).

What refrigerant usage in EPREL says about the market’s real centre of gravity

The declared refrigerant counts show where the market really sits. R32 leads with 13,935 listings, followed by R410A with 1,896, then R290 with 537, while legacy or miscoded entries are tiny by comparison, such as R410a at 49 and several single-unit declarations across obscure codes (refrigerant_universe).

The environmental and regulatory spread between those leading refrigerants is large. In the reference table, R290 has GWP 0 and no listed F-gas phase-out date, while R32 has GWP 771 and a phase-out date of 2027-01-01; R410A is higher still at GWP 1924 with a phase-out date of 2025-01-01 (refrigerant_universe). That means the declared-volume leader and the efficiency-marketing leader are not the same thing: the centre of gravity remains a transitional HFC, not a natural refrigerant.

The gap is wide in absolute terms too. Between the two main declared families, R32’s GWP exceeds R290’s by 771 points, and its listed phase-out date arrives while R290 has none in the reference schedule (refrigerant_universe). Readers comparing refrigerant pathways can use the refrigerants reference alongside R290 catalog entries to see how small the propane base still is.

At brand level, catalogue strategy also differs. Vaillant GmbH lists 1,195 models at average SCOP 4.54, while BDR Thermea Group B.V. lists 925 at 4.37; JOHNSON CONTROLS HITACHI AIR CONDITIONING EUROPE SAS, SUCURSAL EN ESPAÑA has 5,207 at 4.18 (market_index_snapshot). The corpus, however, does not break refrigerant family by manufacturer, so it cannot show whether R290 or R32 dominates each brand’s catalogue.

Where the running-cost math still works for buyers without subsidy

The strongest economic signal in the country data is that 23 countries sit at or below an electricity-to-gas tariff ratio of 3.71, which is roughly the threshold at which a SCOP 4 heat pump can beat a gas boiler on running cost before subsidy (price_ratio). Poland lands exactly at 3.71, making it the boundary case in the supplied table (price_ratio).

The most heat-pump-favourable ratios are much lower. Sweden is at 1.30, the Netherlands 1.49, Portugal 1.73, France 1.78, and Italy 2.00 (price_ratio). Even larger heating markets remain below the threshold: Germany is at 3.16 and Spain at 2.79 (price_ratio). That means local tariff structure can matter more than the difference between two similarly efficient units on the showroom floor.

Above the threshold, the economics tighten fast. Belgium is at 3.90, the United Kingdom 4.63, and Romania 5.11 (price_ratio). In those cases, the operating-cost case for a mainstream unit is weaker unless the installed system performs well above SCOP 4, or policy support lowers the upfront bill. The country comparison dashboard, country pages, and payback calculator are better tools here than refrigerant marketing alone.

That is the real 2026 divergence. EPREL shows a market where the efficiency ceiling and the volume centre are different things, and where the buyer’s economics are often set as much by national tariff ratios as by whether the badge says R32 or R290 (market_index_snapshot) (price_ratio).

Sources

market_index_snapshot — Househeating Pulse · Market Index v1, computed from EPREL Public API. Snapshot: 2026-07-05.
type_efficiency — EPREL Public API · type aggregation. Snapshot: 2026-07-05.
refrigerant_universe — IPCC AR6 GWP table; EU Reg. 2024/573 phase-out schedule; EPREL declared codes. Snapshot: 2026-07-05.
top_models — EPREL Public API via Househeating Pulse catalog. Snapshot: 2026-07-05.
price_ratio — Eurostat household band DC (electricity) / D2 (gas), latest semester. Snapshot: 2026-07-05.