R290 reaches 2026 in Europe: the refrigerant share shift in EPREL listings

R290 now accounts for 537 of 60,989 EPREL-listed heat-pump models, or 0.88% of the database, which is still small in absolute share but no longer a one-off fringe once a single refrigerant family can be counted in the hundreds across Europe (market_index_snapshot). If the lens is narrowed to “natural refrigerants” as a group, EPREL puts that segment at 3.27% of all listed models, so propane is already a meaningful part of the low-GWP slice rather than an isolated anomaly (market_index_snapshot).

That matters because the broader EPREL pool is huge and fragmented: 60,989 models are spread across 777 manufacturers, with the average listing showing SCOP 4.55, declared power 9.3 kW and outdoor noise 61.3 dB (market_index_snapshot). Against that base, a 537-model propane cohort is large enough to track as a market segment in its own right in the full heat-pump catalog and in the market index snapshot.

The caveat is that EPREL listings are not sales. They show what manufacturers have registered, not what has shipped into homes. So the clearest finding is about product availability and compliance positioning, not market share by units sold.

R290 versus R32 and the remaining refrigerant mix

The striking contrast is not that R290 is already dominant, but that the market is still overwhelmingly R32-led. EPREL shows 13,935 R32 listings versus 537 for R290, while all other declared refrigerant codes combined account for 2,052 listings (market_index_snapshot). That puts R32 at 22.85% of all listed models, R290 at 0.88%, and the rest of the declared refrigerant mix at 3.36% (market_index_snapshot).

In absolute terms, the gap between R290 and the next-largest refrigerant is 13,398 models, with R32 clearly in first place (market_index_snapshot). Behind those two, the next most-used declared code is R410A at 1,896 listings, followed by a separate 49 listings under the differently cased code “R410a” and 10 under “R410,” which shows how messy EPREL refrigerant declarations still are (market_index_snapshot).

The regulatory context sharpens that split. In the refrigerant reference table, R290 has a GWP of 0 and no listed EU phase-out date, while R32 has a GWP of 771 and a listed phase-out date of 2027-01-01 (refrigerant_universe). R410A has a much higher GWP of 1,924 and a listed phase-out date of 2025-01-01, while R134a sits at GWP 1,300 with a listed phase-out date of 2026-01-01 (refrigerant_universe). For readers comparing R290 listings with the older mix, the refrigerants reference is the essential companion.

One limitation: the corpus does not provide EPREL counts for refrigerants such as R454B or R744 in current heat-pump listings, only their reference properties and the declared-usage table shown above (refrigerant_universe).

Which brands are driving the R290 surge

The overall EPREL market remains concentrated at the top even before isolating propane. Daikin Europe N.V. alone accounts for 14,668 models, or 24.05% of all listings, ahead of Mitsubishi Electric Europe B.V. at 5,575 models and 9.14%, and JOHNSON CONTROLS HITACHI AIR CONDITIONING EUROPE SAS, SUCURSAL EN ESPAÑA at 5,207 and 8.54% (brand_share). The top five brands — Daikin, Mitsubishi Electric, Johnson Controls Hitachi, Bosch Thermotechnik and Ariston — sum to 31,670 models, equal to 51.93% of EPREL listings (brand_share).

That is the key concentration number for the overall market: just five manufacturers control a little over half of all listed models, even though EPREL contains 777 manufacturers in total (brand_share) (market_index_snapshot). Readers can inspect that stack through the manufacturer directory, Daikin Europe N.V., Mitsubishi Electric Europe B.V. and Bosch Thermotechnik GmbH.

What the corpus does not contain is a brand ranking filtered specifically to R290. So it is not possible here to answer, with evidence, which manufacturers account for the largest number of propane listings or what share of all R290 models the top five R290 brands control. The same applies to whether the top overall manufacturers also dominate the “high-visibility” R290 pool. The available top-20 quietest R290 models suggest a long tail of smaller brands rather than obvious control by the largest incumbents, but that is not a complete market-share measure (top_models_noise_r290).

What the product data says about efficiency, capacity and noise

The corpus only partially supports a performance comparison between R290 and the wider market. For the full EPREL market, the average listed model posts SCOP 4.55, capacity 9.3 kW and outdoor noise 61.3 dB (market_index_snapshot). By type, air-water models average SCOP 4.54, 11.83 kW and 59.8 dB, while air-air models average 5.41 kW and 64.1 dB, with no aggregate SCOP given for that type (type_efficiency).

For R290 specifically, the available performance signal is strongest on noise, not average efficiency. The top 20 quietest R290 listings are all air-air units, and 18 of those 20 sit at 60 dB or below, with the quietest declared at 2 dB, then 20 dB, then a cluster from 50 dB upward (top_models_noise_r290). Those extreme low figures are likely data-quality outliers rather than credible installed operating noise, but they do show that the quietest visible propane cohort in EPREL is concentrated in small air-air products rather than large hydronic systems (top_models_noise_r290).

The corpus does not provide an R290-only average SCOP, average capacity, average outdoor noise, or a type split for all propane models. So it is not possible to quantify what percentage of all R290 listings are air-water units, nor how many R290 models sit in the top-efficiency cohort. The supplied SCOP leaderboard for R290 is empty, which blocks any numeric count of propane entries among the most efficient models (top_models_scop_r290).

Still, the visibility pattern is clear enough: low-noise R290 examples such as SC Trade & Services GmbH KBO12-R290, SC Trade & Services GmbH KBO18-R290 and OPTIMEA OPC-C02-121HP are showing up in EPREL now, but mostly outside the biggest brand portfolios (top_models_noise_r290).

Why the refrigerant shift matters for buyers and installers

The practical significance is less about today’s raw share and more about direction. A 537-model propane pool means buyers and installers can now compare a real R290 product set instead of treating propane as a boutique exception (market_index_snapshot). Since R290 carries GWP 0 and no listed EU phase-out date, it offers a much cleaner compliance narrative than R32 at GWP 771 with a 2027-01-01 phase-out date in the reference table, or R410A at GWP 1,924 with a 2025-01-01 date (refrigerant_universe).

That does not automatically make R290 a performance winner. The corpus does not prove a higher average SCOP or a uniform “premium” position for propane. But it does show that the overall market average is 61.3 dB and that a visible subset of propane units is competing in lower-noise territory, at least in the air-air category (market_index_snapshot) (top_models_noise_r290). For installers, that means refrigerant choice is increasingly tied to siting, paperwork and future-proofing expectations, not only thermodynamics.

The compliance and market outlook for the next EPREL cycle

EPREL’s 2026 picture suggests a two-speed transition. On one side, R32 remains the mainstream declared refrigerant with 13,935 listings, dwarfing every alternative (market_index_snapshot). On the other, R290 has reached 537 listings and sits inside a natural-refrigerant segment worth 3.27% of the database, which is enough to monitor as a strategic shift rather than a novelty (market_index_snapshot).

The likely next step is wider normalization of low-GWP product lines, but the current corpus cannot quantify how fast that happens by brand or by hydronic segment. What it does show is that the registration base is broad, the top five manufacturers already control 51.93% of all listings, and refrigerant declarations still include duplicate code variants that muddy comparisons (brand_share) (market_index_snapshot). That makes the next EPREL cycle as much a data-cleaning story as a refrigerant one. For buyers and journalists tracking the move, the leaderboards hub and methodology notes matter almost as much as the raw catalog.

Sources

market_index_snapshot — Househeating Pulse · Market Index v1, computed from EPREL Public API. Snapshot: 2026-07-02.
refrigerant_universe — IPCC AR6 GWP table; EU Reg. 2024/573 phase-out schedule; EPREL declared codes. Snapshot: 2026-07-02.
brand_share — EPREL Public API · brand-share aggregation. Snapshot: 2026-07-02.
top_models_noise_r290 — EPREL Public API via Househeating Pulse catalog. Snapshot: 2026-07-02.
top_models_scop_r290 — EPREL Public API via Househeating Pulse catalog. Snapshot: 2026-07-02.
type_efficiency — EPREL Public API · type aggregation. Snapshot: 2026-07-02.

R290’s 2026 share in EPREL: how big the shift is