2026 heat-pump brand share in the Baltics vs Benelux: who leads the EPREL list?

Market size and brand concentration: Baltics vs Benelux

The comparison promised by the headline cannot be completed from the present corpus as stated. The registry extract provided here does not include EPREL-listed model counts, brand shares, average SCOP by brand, refrigerant shares, or portfolio mix for Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg as separate regional blocs. It does include Europe-wide brand rankings, six-country household energy prices, and a Europe-wide top-SCOP list.

That matters because the key question is regional structure, not just absolute European scale. For live country-level browsing, the closest internal tools are the country comparison dashboard, the market snapshot, and the full EPREL catalog.

What can be said from the corpus is narrower:

• Across the full catalog sample, EPREL contains 60,989 listed models in total (brand_share / EPREL Public API · brand-share aggregation).
• The market is top-heavy at European level: Daikin Europe N.V. alone accounts for 24.05% of listings with 14,668 models and an average SCOP of 4.44 (brand_share / EPREL Public API · brand-share aggregation).
• The next four brands are Mitsubishi Electric Europe B.V. at 9.14% and 5,575 models with 4.51 average SCOP, JOHNSON CONTROLS HITACHI AIR CONDITIONING EUROPE SAS, SUCURSAL EN ESPAÑA at 8.54% and 5,207 models with 4.18 average SCOP, Bosch Thermotechnik GmbH at 5.91% and 3,602 models with 4.69 average SCOP, and Ariston SpA at 4.29% and 2,618 models with 4.66 average SCOP (brand_share / EPREL Public API · brand-share aggregation).

Taken together, those top five manufacturers control 51.93% of all listed models by share sum (brand_share / EPREL Public API · brand-share aggregation). That does not prove that Benelux is more concentrated than the Baltics; it only shows that the broader European EPREL universe is highly concentrated.

Which manufacturers dominate each bloc in EPREL

The corpus does not provide bloc-specific rankings for Baltics versus Benelux, so it cannot identify which maker leads each bloc or how many top brands account for most of each region’s listings. The registry slice here simply lacks country-tagged manufacturer aggregation.

Still, the Europe-wide leaderboard is useful context for buyers comparing what is likely to appear in local dealer portfolios and import catalogues. After the top five, the next cluster is much smaller:

(brand_share / EPREL Public API · brand-share aggregation)

Within the top 10, the highest average SCOP belongs to Bosch at 4.69 and the lowest to Johnson Controls Hitachi at 4.18, a spread of 0.51 SCOP points (brand_share / EPREL Public API · brand-share aggregation). Expanding to the top 15, the lowest average SCOP becomes Toshiba Carrier Europe S.A.S at 3.93, while the highest remains Bosch at 4.69, widening the spread to 0.76 points (brand_share / EPREL Public API · brand-share aggregation).

Those figures are for Europe-wide brands, not for Baltics or Benelux separately. Readers who need manufacturer-level filtering can move from the manufacturer directory into individual profiles or browse the leaderboards hub.

Refrigerant mix: how far R290 has penetrated

Again, the corpus does not contain bloc-level refrigerant shares for Baltics versus Benelux. It therefore cannot answer what share of listed models use propane in each bloc.

What it does show is the declared refrigerant universe in the current EPREL extract and the regulatory context around it. The reference table lists 15 refrigerant codes or blends, including R290, R1234yf, R1234ze(E)), R32, R744 and others (refrigerant_universe / IPCC AR6 GWP table; EU Reg. 2024/573 phase-out schedule; EPREL declared codes).

In the declared-usage tally, R32 appears 13,935 times, while R290 appears 537 times under the exact code “R290”, plus 2 entries as “R290A” and 1 as “R290a” (refrigerant_universe / IPCC AR6 GWP table; EU Reg. 2024/573 phase-out schedule; EPREL declared codes). The same declared-usage table also shows 1,896 entries for “R410A” and 49 for “R410a” alongside a long tail of stray codes and apparent declaration inconsistencies (refrigerant_universe / IPCC AR6 GWP table; EU Reg. 2024/573 phase-out schedule; EPREL declared codes).

Two points follow.

First, the corpus supports the view that exact-code declarations are still messy enough that refrigerant comparisons need careful normalization. The refrigerants reference and our methodology notes are the right places to check how these labels are treated.

Second, the regulatory pressure is clear even if regional uptake is not: the reference table marks R134a with a phase-out date of 2026-01-01, R32 with 2027-01-01, and both R407C and R410A with 2025-01-01 under the cited schedule (refrigerant_universe / IPCC AR6 GWP table; EU Reg. 2024/573 phase-out schedule; EPREL declared codes). For the legal text, see EU Regulation 2024/573.

Price bands and running-cost competitiveness

On energy-price structure, the corpus is much stronger. All six target markets have household electricity-to-gas ratios below or around the rough 3.7 break-even marker named in the brief, except Belgium.

The six-country picture is:

(price_ratio / Eurostat household band DC (electricity) / D2 (gas), latest semester)

That means 5 of the 6 markets sit below the ~3.7 threshold, while 1 of the 6 sits above it: Belgium at 3.90 (price_ratio / Eurostat household band DC (electricity) / D2 (gas), latest semester).

At bloc level, the simple average electricity-to-gas ratio is 2.95 for the Baltics, from Lithuania 2.86, Latvia 2.97 and Estonia 3.03 (price_ratio / Eurostat household band DC (electricity) / D2 (gas), latest semester). For Benelux, the simple average is 2.79, from Belgium 3.90, the Netherlands 1.49 and Luxembourg 2.99 (price_ratio / Eurostat household band DC (electricity) / D2 (gas), latest semester).

The Benelux average is pulled down sharply by the Netherlands, where gas remains relatively cheap at 0.1719 €/kWh versus 0.2558 €/kWh for electricity, giving a ratio of 1.49 (price_ratio / Eurostat household band DC (electricity) / D2 (gas), latest semester). Belgium is the outlier in the opposite direction at 0.3499 €/kWh electricity and 0.0898 €/kWh gas, yielding 3.90 (price_ratio / Eurostat household band DC (electricity) / D2 (gas), latest semester).

Country pages for Belgium and the Netherlands can be paired with the payback calculator if the question is not catalogue breadth but operating economics. For the underlying energy-price series, Eurostat remains the reference source via its household electricity and gas price datasets.

Do higher prices buy better efficiency?

This is where the corpus becomes partial again. It does not include bloc-level selling prices for models, so it cannot show whether Benelux listings sit in higher price bands than Baltic ones, nor whether any premium is justified by measurable SCOP gains.

It does, however, show where the current top-efficiency frontier sits in EPREL overall. The top 10 models by SCOP range from 6.92 to 7.00 (top_models / EPREL Public API via Househeating Pulse catalog). Specifically:

• Rank 1, Risch Kälte- und Klimatechnik GmbH OH I 4esr TWW W/W, reaches 7.00 SCOP and is class APPP (top_models / EPREL Public API via Househeating Pulse catalog).
• Ranks 2 to 5 sit at 6.97 SCOP, including Master Therm tepelná čerpadla s.r.o. AQ30I-0WW, Waterkotte GmbH CTC EcoTouch 525 (water/water), Hoval Aktiengesellschaft 42 -Thermalia® twin (26) GW, and Waterkotte GmbH EcoTouch DS 5034.5 T (water/water) (top_models / EPREL Public API via Househeating Pulse catalog).
• Rank 6, ProCalor B.V. ProGH10-32DC, posts 6.95 SCOP (top_models / EPREL Public API via Househeating Pulse catalog).

All top 10 carry the heating class APPP (top_models / EPREL Public API via Househeating Pulse catalog). So the best-rated models do cluster in the same top efficiency band. But the registry extract does not record refrigerant for any of these 10 entries: each refrigerant field is null in the supplied data (top_models / EPREL Public API via Househeating Pulse catalog). That means the corpus cannot answer how many of the top 10 use R290.

It can answer one adjacent question: the top-SCOP list is not dominated by one product architecture. Among the top 10, 6 are air-water and 4 are water-water (top_models / EPREL Public API via Househeating Pulse catalog). Readers wanting the specialist cut should compare the top SCOP overall leaderboard with the air-to-water ranking and the ground-source ranking.

What buyers should watch in 2026

The strongest evidence in this corpus points to three practical conclusions.

First, Europe-wide EPREL supply is concentrated even before any regional filtering: the top five brands hold 51.93% of listed models (brand_share / EPREL Public API · brand-share aggregation). That raises the odds that any regional market, especially a smaller one, will be shaped by a handful of manufacturers rather than a long equal tail.

Second, refrigerant comparisons need care. The underlying reference universe spans 15 refrigerant codes or blends, but declared usage is inconsistent enough that direct counts can understate or fragment the real installed mix (refrigerant_universe / IPCC AR6 GWP table; EU Reg. 2024/573 phase-out schedule; EPREL declared codes). For propane-specific browsing, the live R290 catalog filter is more useful than a static summary.

Third, operating economics differ more across the six target countries than any unsupported narrative about “premium” regional markets should assume. The Netherlands sits at an electricity-to-gas ratio of 1.49, while Belgium sits at 3.90; the Baltics cluster more tightly between 2.86 and 3.03 (price_ratio / Eurostat household band DC (electricity) / D2 (gas), latest semester). That spread is large enough that buyers should test scenarios with the payback calculator and check local support on the subsidy index, not rely on headline SCOP alone.

The unanswered parts are also worth stating plainly. The present registry slice does not record bloc-specific brand concentration for Baltics versus Benelux, bloc-specific average SCOP of leading brands, bloc-specific R290 shares, or the manufacturer portfolio split between air-water and other types within each bloc. Those require country-filtered EPREL aggregation that is not present in this corpus.

Sources

• EPREL Public API · brand-share aggregation — snapshot 2026-06-14
• IPCC AR6 GWP table; EU Reg. 2024/573 phase-out schedule; EPREL declared codes — snapshot 2026-06-14
• Eurostat household band DC (electricity) / D2 (gas), latest semester — snapshot 2026-06-14
• EPREL Public API via Househeating Pulse catalog — snapshot 2026-06-14
• Eurostat · NASA POWER · EEA · Househeating Pulse subsidy register — snapshot 2026-06-14

Continue reading

• How to compare SCOP across heat-pump types — Why air-water and water-water leaderboards should not be read as one market.
• R290 vs R32 heat pumps — A practical look at refrigerant trade-offs, regulation and catalog filtering.
• How to use the payback calculator for country-specific tariffs — Turn electricity and gas price ratios into a simple running-cost test.
• How to read EPREL heat-pump listings without being misled — Common data quirks, naming issues and what the registry does not standardise.