2026 heat-pump market index: Austria vs Croatia vs Romania

The three-market scoreboard: where Austria, Croatia and Romania stand in 2026

Austria, Croatia and Romania sit in noticeably different positions once tariff economics, climate and support are put on the same page. The quickest way to see that is to line up the core market signals from the 32-country comparison dashboard, the individual country pages for Austria, Croatia and Romania, and the current subsidy index.

That ranking answers the main comparative question straight away. On electricity-to-gas economics, Austria is lowest at 2.68, Croatia follows at 3.05, and Romania is highest at 5.11 (price_ratio / Eurostat household band DC (electricity) / D2 (gas), latest semester). Against a 3.7 break-even threshold for a SCOP 4 heat pump, Austria and Croatia sit below that line by 1.02 and 0.65 respectively, while Romania sits above it by 1.41 (price_ratio / Eurostat household band DC (electricity) / D2 (gas), latest semester).

That does not by itself tell the whole adoption story. It does, however, show why Austria can look mature without relying on especially favourable electricity pricing alone: its support environment and low-carbon grid matter as much as the tariff ratio. Romania, by contrast, looks structurally harder on running-cost parity with gas despite sitting in a milder heating context than Austria.

Running-cost reality: electricity vs gas ratios and subsidy support

For household tariffs, Croatia is the cheapest of the three on both fuels. Its electricity price is €0.1658/kWh and gas price is €0.0543/kWh (country_compare / Eurostat · NASA POWER · EEA · Househeating Pulse subsidy register). Austria is the most expensive on both fuels at €0.3272/kWh for electricity and €0.1221/kWh for gas (country_compare / Eurostat · NASA POWER · EEA · Househeating Pulse subsidy register). Romania sits in the middle on electricity at €0.2893/kWh but close to Croatia on gas at €0.0566/kWh (country_compare / Eurostat · NASA POWER · EEA · Househeating Pulse subsidy register).

The exact spread between the cheapest and most expensive market is therefore €0.1614/kWh for electricity, from Croatia’s €0.1658/kWh to Austria’s €0.3272/kWh (country_compare / Eurostat · NASA POWER · EEA · Househeating Pulse subsidy register). For gas, the spread is €0.0678/kWh, from Croatia’s €0.0543/kWh to Austria’s €0.1221/kWh (country_compare / Eurostat · NASA POWER · EEA · Househeating Pulse subsidy register).

The ratios are the more important signal for gas-switch economics. Austria’s 2.68 ratio ranks best among the three, Croatia’s 3.05 is still below the 3.7 reference point, and Romania’s 5.11 is far above it (price_ratio / Eurostat household band DC (electricity) / D2 (gas), latest semester). Readers wanting to stress-test those economics for a specific home can run the assumptions through the heat-pump payback calculator and compare them against the platform’s methodology notes.

Subsidy support is where Austria pulls furthest away. The Austrian market has 1 active subsidy and a maximum recorded support level of €23,000 (country_compare / Eurostat · NASA POWER · EEA · Househeating Pulse subsidy register). The country-level subsidy profile shows that this comes from the “Raus aus Öl” programme, with a low-income cap up to €23,000 and a 75% cost cap (country_profile / Eurostat tariffs (band DC/D2 latest); NASA POWER 30y normal; EEA grid CO₂; subsidies captured manually from official programme pages). Croatia has no active subsidy recorded and no maximum subsidy amount recorded (country_compare / Eurostat · NASA POWER · EEA · Househeating Pulse subsidy register). Romania also has no active subsidy recorded and no maximum subsidy amount recorded (country_compare / Eurostat · NASA POWER · EEA · Househeating Pulse subsidy register). Where buyers need an eligibility check rather than a market overview, the country pages and subsidy calculator are the practical next step.

Climate and grid conditions: HDD, CO₂ intensity and what they mean for uptake

Austria is the coldest of the three on annual HDD₁₈ at 3309.19, followed by Croatia at 2957.86 and Romania at 2734.85 (country_compare / Eurostat · NASA POWER · EEA · Househeating Pulse subsidy register). So the mature benchmark here is not maturing in an easy climate. It has the highest heating demand signal in the group.

Grid context also favours Austria. Its electricity grid intensity is 89.0 gCO₂/kWh, compared with 134.0 gCO₂/kWh in Croatia and 240.0 gCO₂/kWh in Romania (country_compare / Eurostat · Eurostat · NASA POWER · EEA · Househeating Pulse subsidy register). That means the Austrian case combines colder conditions with the cleanest electricity of the three.

The country profiles add another useful detail. Austria and Romania are both in the “average” climate zone, while Croatia is classed as “warmer” (country_compare / Eurostat · NASA POWER · EEA · Househeating Pulse subsidy register). Yet Croatia’s HDD₁₈ remains fairly close to Romania’s at 2957.86 versus 2734.85 (country_compare / Eurostat · NASA POWER · EEA · Househeating Pulse subsidy register). For installers, that is a reminder that headline climate-zone labels can hide meaningful heating-load overlap; the more precise reading is on the climate-fit analyzer and the site’s climate-zone explainer.

Taken together, the three-country picture supports a narrow claim rather than a sweeping one. Austria’s maturity is consistent with a colder climate, lower grid carbon and stronger subsidy support. Croatia and Romania differ less on climate than on fuel-price structure and support availability. The registry does not record actual installation volumes for these three markets in this corpus, so uptake itself cannot be quantified here.

EPREL market depth: model count, brand count and what maturity looks like

The live EPREL catalog behind Househeating Pulse currently contains 60,989 heat-pump models from 777 manufacturers (market_index_snapshot / Househeating Pulse · Market Index v1, computed from EPREL Public API). Those are Europe-wide counts, not country-specific listings. The corpus does not provide model counts broken out separately for Austria, Croatia or Romania, so the registry cannot tell us how many products are specifically marketed in each of the three countries.

Even so, those universe totals are useful for interpretation. A mature market is less likely to be defined by raw European catalogue breadth alone when the overall dataset already spans 60,989 models and 777 manufacturers (market_index_snapshot / Househeating Pulse · Market Index v1, computed from EPREL Public API). What maturity looks like in practice is more about which parts of that universe are commercially viable under local tariffs, subsidy rules and installer norms.

The Europe-wide average product in the snapshot has a SCOP of 4.55, declared power of 9.3 kW, and outdoor noise of 61.3 dB (market_index_snapshot / Househeating Pulse · Market Index v1, computed from EPREL Public API). That gives a baseline against which country economics can be judged. Austria’s lower elec:gas ratio and stronger subsidy stack make more of that broad catalogue economically legible. Croatia’s lower absolute tariffs help too, but without support. Romania’s challenge is different: the gas comparison remains harsh despite access to the same wider manufacturer directory and market index snapshot.

What the product universe looks like: refrigerants, efficiency, capacity and noise

By heat-pump type, the EPREL universe is led by air-water systems at 30,452 models, followed by air-air at 21,065, heat-pump water heaters at 9,228, ground-water at 213, and water-water at 31 (market_index_snapshot / Househeating Pulse · Market Index v1, computed from EPREL Public API). Buyers comparing emission pathways can filter directly to air-to-water heat pumps, air-to-air heat pumps or ground-source heat pumps.

Refrigerants are even more concentrated. R32 appears in 13,935 declared listings, while R290 appears in 537 listings (market_index_snapshot / Househeating Pulse · Market Index v1, computed from EPREL Public API). Higher-volume legacy entries remain visible too, with R410A at 1,896 and variant spellings such as R410 at 10 and R410a at 49 (market_index_snapshot / Househeating Pulse · Market Index v1, computed from EPREL Public API). Natural refrigerants account for 3.27% of the indexed universe overall (market_index_snapshot / Househeating Pulse · Market Index v1, computed from EPREL Public API). For readers tracking the transition, the site’s refrigerants reference, R290 listings and R32 listings are the fastest way to inspect the split.

Energy-class distribution is also top-heavy. The A+++ tier accounts for 23,466 listings, A++ for 8,924, A+ for 16,845, and A for 6,228 (market_index_snapshot / Househeating Pulse · Market Index v1, computed from EPREL Public API). The A+++ catalog slice is therefore not niche within EPREL; it is the single largest class bucket in the current snapshot.

One limit matters here. The corpus gives average SCOP, average power and average outdoor noise for the full universe at 4.55, 9.3 kW and 61.3 dB respectively (market_index_snapshot / Househeating Pulse · Market Index v1, computed from EPREL Public API), but it does not provide those averages broken out by type. It therefore does not support a numeric answer to which type has the best efficiency-to-noise profile. For that, the best available route is the top SCOP leaderboard, air-water SCOP leaderboard, ground-source SCOP leaderboard and quietest-model leaderboard.

The brands and models shaping each market’s benchmark

The EPREL universe is highly concentrated at the top. Daikin Europe N.V. leads with 14,668 models and a 24.05% share, with an average SCOP of 4.44 (market_index_snapshot / Househeating Pulse · Market Index v1, computed from EPREL Public API). Mitsubishi Electric Europe B.V. follows at 5,575 models and 9.14%, with an average SCOP of 4.51 (market_index_snapshot / Househeating Pulse · Market Index v1, computed from EPREL Public API). Third is JOHNSON CONTROLS HITACHI AIR CONDITIONING EUROPE SAS, SUCURSAL EN ESPAÑA at 5,207 models and 8.54%, with an average SCOP of 4.18 (market_index_snapshot / Househeating Pulse · Market Index v1, computed from EPREL Public API).

The next tier is led by Bosch Thermotechnik GmbH at 3,602 models, 5.91% share and 4.69 average SCOP, then Ariston SpA at 2,618 models, 4.29% share and 4.66 average SCOP, and Vaillant GmbH at 1,195 models, 1.96% share and 4.54 average SCOP (market_index_snapshot / Househeating Pulse · Market Index v1, computed from EPREL Public API). On this measure, Bosch posts the highest average SCOP among the top five brands at 4.69 (market_index_snapshot / Househeating Pulse · Market Index v1, computed from EPREL Public API).

The corpus does not include individual model names, model slugs, or a top-model table. That means the registry does not record which specific units sit at the top of the efficiency ranking, nor their exact SCOP values, type, refrigerant and power class within this prompt. The appropriate destination for that query is the live top SCOP overall leaderboard, with type-specific views for air-to-water leaders and ground-source leaders.

For the Austria-Croatia-Romania comparison, that missing model-level detail does not change the central reading. Austria looks structurally mature because it combines the highest heating demand of the three at 3309.19 HDD₁₈, the cleanest grid at 89.0 gCO₂/kWh, and the strongest recorded subsidy at €23,000 (country_compare / Eurostat · NASA POWER · EEA · Househeating Pulse subsidy register). Croatia and Romania differ more sharply on tariff economics than on climate: Croatia’s ratio is 3.05 and still below the 3.7 reference point, while Romania’s is 5.11 and well above it (price_ratio / Eurostat household band DC (electricity) / D2 (gas), latest semester). That is a product-mix problem only in part. More fundamentally, it is a market-structure problem.

Sources

• Eurostat · NASA POWER · EEA · Househeating Pulse subsidy register — snapshot 2026-06-16
• Eurostat household band DC (electricity) / D2 (gas), latest semester — snapshot 2026-06-16
• Eurostat tariffs (band DC/D2 latest); NASA POWER 30y normal; EEA grid CO₂; subsidies captured manually from official programme pages — snapshots 2026-06-16 for Austria, Croatia and Romania country profiles
• Househeating Pulse · Market Index v1, computed from EPREL Public API — snapshot 2026-06-16
• EPREL public registry — referenced for catalog context
• EEA electricity CO₂ intensity datasets — referenced for grid-intensity context

Continue reading

• How to compare heat-pump running costs with gas — A practical framework for interpreting the electricity-to-gas ratio in real homes.
• R290 vs R32 heat pumps — What the refrigerant split means for efficiency, safety and future-proofing.
• How to size a heat pump for climate and emitters — Use heating demand, emitter temperature and local weather together rather than nameplate alone.
• How heat-pump subsidies change payback — Why grant structure can outweigh small differences in headline equipment price.