Planning ahead can pay off. Those who address the issue now have more time to make the right decision. The proportion of heat pumps used as primary heating has doubled within ten years - that's worth considering.
Heat pumps are being used for heating in more and more new residential buildings in Germany. More than two thirds of the almost 76,100 residential buildings completed in 2024 use heat pumps as their primary energy source, i.e. mainly for heating. Compared to 2014 (31.8%), this figure has more than doubled. Heat pumps are primarily used in detached and semi-detached houses: in 74.1% of all detached and semi-detached houses completed in 2024, a heat pump was used as the primary source of heating energy; this was significantly less the case in multi-family houses (45.9%).
Renewable energy sources are used for heating in four out of five newly constructed residential buildings. Heat pumps use geothermal and environmental thermal energy, which are also counted as renewable energy sources, to heat buildings. The majority of newly constructed residential buildings in Germany are now heated with renewable energy: 73.9% of residential buildings completed in 2024 were predominantly heated with renewable energy. In 2014, this proportion was still 38.5 percent. In addition to geothermal or air heat pumps, renewable energies also include wood, for example in pellet heating systems or wood-burning stoves.
However, renewable energies are also used as a supplementary energy source, for example in the form of a wood-burning stove. Overall, renewable energies will be used for heating in four out of five new residential buildings (82.3%) in 2024, whether as a primary or secondary source. In 2014, the proportion was still 61.7 percent.
Only 15 percent of new buildings are now primarily heated with gas. The proportion of gas heating as a primary energy source has therefore more than halved within ten years - in 2014 it was still at 50.7%. 8.5% of new residential buildings were primarily heated with district heating (2014: 7.9%). Oil heating was only used as the primary heating system in around 230 new residential buildings, or 0.3% of new builds.
Photo: © Federal Statistical Office, Destatis, 2025
