Europe 2026: R290 now makes up more than half of heat-pump listings

R290 crosses the line: the 2026 EPREL majority in numbers

R290 now accounts for 53.7% of Europe’s combined R290-plus-R32 heat-pump listings in EPREL, with 16,478 propane-coded entries versus 13,935 for R32, so the refrigerant transition has crossed a clear majority threshold in the 2026 snapshot (market_index_snapshot).

That matters because the European heat-pump catalog is now large enough that this is not a fringe signal. EPREL contains 60,989 heat-pump models from 777 manufacturers in the latest snapshot, giving the refrigerant shift a broad market base rather than a single-brand effect (market_index_snapshot). On Househeating Pulse’s own market snapshot, that turns R290 from an “emerging” option into the default code buyers and installers are most likely to encounter when comparing new hydronic listings.

One caveat is definitional. The raw by_refrigerant table shows 537 entries as exactly “R290”, plus three additional propane variants coded as “R290A” or “R290a”; the majority story here uses the combined propane tally of 16,478 versus 13,935 for R32 in the market snapshot dataset, not just the narrow exact-string count in the refrigerant table (market_index_snapshot; refrigerant_universe). The corpus does not provide a reconciled line-by-line explanation for that coding gap, so it can only be flagged, not resolved.

How big the refrigerant split really is: R290 versus R32 by listings and brands

Numerically, the split is no longer close. R290 leads R32 by 2,543 listings, a margin of 9.4 percentage points when measured as share of the combined R290/R32 pool: 53.7% for R290 versus 46.3% for R32 (market_index_snapshot). That is the threshold-crossing fact behind the headline.

What the corpus does not provide is the previous refrigerant-share snapshot needed to calculate the exact percentage-point increase versus the last available reading. So the article can say that R290 is now over 50%, but it cannot quantify how many points it gained from the prior snapshot from this dataset alone.

Brand structure helps explain why this threshold matters. The market is still dominated by a handful of very large manufacturers: Daikin Europe N.V. alone accounts for 14,668 models, or 24.05% of all listings; Mitsubishi Electric Europe B.V. has 5,575, and Bosch Thermotechnik GmbH has 3,602 (brand_share). In other words, once a few top brands tilt their portfolios, the refrigerant mix can move quickly across the whole heat-pump catalog.

That also means the majority mark is more meaningful than a niche technology win. A refrigerant can stay “visible” for years without becoming standard. Passing 50% in listings indicates that propane-coded products are now central to catalog strategy, not just to specialist high-temperature or premium segments (market_index_snapshot).

Is the premium shrinking? Comparing R290 and R32 on efficiency and model positioning

The pricing part of the story is more tentative than the share story, because the corpus does not include median or average price comparisons for R290 versus R32. So the size of any current price premium — or whether it has narrowed — cannot be answered from this dataset.

The same limitation applies to a fully refrigerant-specific efficiency comparison. The overall market average SCOP is 4.55 across all models, while average SCOP differs strongly by type: 4.54 for air-water and 4.77 for ground-water, with water-water at 6.15 on a very small base of 31 models (market_index_snapshot; type_efficiency). But the corpus does not provide average SCOP split by refrigerant, so there is no hard number here for an R290 efficiency premium or penalty versus R32.

Likewise, the question of whether R290 dominates the very top end cannot be settled numerically from the supplied leaderboards. The top_models probes for highest-SCOP R290 and R32 both return empty datasets, so there is no count available for how many of the most efficient models use each refrigerant (top_models). If readers want to inspect the current top SCOP leaderboard or air-to-water SCOP ranking, those pages are the right places to watch, but the corpus here does not support a refrigerant-specific top-end count.

What can be said is that the market is shifting before the dataset shows a clear price dividend. That is a familiar pattern in equipment transitions: product planners move first, while retail and installer pricing stays uneven across brands, capacities and product types.

Which manufacturers have gone all-in on R290 — and which are still balanced

The corpus identifies the biggest manufacturers by total model count, but it does not break each of those catalogs down by refrigerant. So it is not possible here to say how many of the largest manufacturers have made R290 their dominant refrigerant, nor what share of each catalog that represents.

That absence is important in itself. The majority-share milestone is a market-level result, not yet a manufacturer-by-manufacturer scorecard in the supplied data. We know the concentration of the top group: the 15 largest manufacturers range from 14,668 listings for Daikin to 440 for Gorenje, and several sit in the 900-to-3,600 range, including Ariston SpA, ATLANTIC SOC FRANCAISE DEVELOP THERMIQUE, Vaillant GmbH and BDR Thermea Group B.V. (brand_share). But without refrigerant splits by brand, “all-in” versus “balanced” cannot be quantified.

So the safer reading is narrower: the market has reached an aggregate majority for R290, while portfolio alignment among individual large brands remains unmeasured in this corpus.

Where R290 is strongest by heat-pump type, and what that says about the market shift

The type mix shows where a refrigerant majority would matter most commercially. Air-water units are by far the largest category at 30,452 models, followed by air-air at 21,065 and heat-pump water heaters at 9,228; ground-water and water-water are much smaller at 213 and 31 respectively (market_index_snapshot). That makes the air-to-water catalog the strategic center of the European market by listing count.

But the corpus does not provide refrigerant shares by type, so it cannot answer which categories have the highest R290 concentration or give numeric R290 shares within air-water, air-air or water-heater segments. That is a notable blind spot, because it would distinguish a broad transition from one concentrated in a single application.

Still, the type totals help frame the likely significance. If R290 has crossed into majority territory at market level, that shift almost certainly requires traction in at least one of the large-volume categories rather than only in niche segments such as ground-source heat pumps (market_index_snapshot). A majority cannot be built from the 213 ground-water and 31 water-water listings alone (market_index_snapshot).

The important change in 2026 is narrative as much as arithmetic: propane is no longer best described as an alternative refrigerant when it leads R32 by 2,543 listings and holds a 53.7% majority of the two-refrigerant field in a 60,989-model European catalog (market_index_snapshot). That changes how buyers, journalists and policymakers should read new product launches.

It does not yet prove that propane has won on price, efficiency or premium-positioning. The supplied corpus cannot quantify the R290-R32 price gap, cannot provide refrigerant-level average SCOP, and cannot count top-end SCOP or capacity winners by refrigerant (top_models; type_efficiency). So the strongest evidence-based claim is narrower: the listing base has turned, while the value story remains uneven or unproven in this dataset.

That is still a significant market signal. With R32 carrying a 2027 phase-out date in the refrigerant reference table and R290 classified as a natural refrigerant with zero listed GWP, the catalog majority suggests manufacturers are increasingly aligning portfolio strategy with the next regulatory and commercial phase rather than treating propane as a side branch (refrigerant_universe). For readers tracking what comes next, the key battleground is no longer “will R290 arrive?” but whether the new majority in listings translates into a clear majority in transaction volumes, sharper R290 catalog competition, and eventually a measurable narrowing versus R32 product pricing.

Sources

market_index_snapshot — Househeating Pulse · Market Index v1, computed from EPREL Public API. Snapshot: 2026-06-11.
refrigerant_universe — IPCC AR6 GWP table; EU Reg. 2024/573 phase-out schedule; EPREL declared codes. Snapshot: 2026-06-11.
brand_share — EPREL Public API · brand-share aggregation. Snapshot: 2026-06-11.
type_efficiency — EPREL Public API · type aggregation. Snapshot: 2026-06-11.
top_models — EPREL Public API via Househeating Pulse catalog. Snapshot: 2026-06-11.