A plumber is working on a radiator in an apartment in Bockenheim that is being renovated.
Image: Lucas Bäuml
Many people are now buying a gas heater to avoid the planned requirements from 2024. They hope to convert to hydrogen. Experts warn: This is a fallacy – if nothing changes in the regulation.
The rush is great. But anyone who quickly orders a new gas heating system in order to avoid the climate protection requirements planned from the beginning of 2024 is likely to fail. “It is a fallacy that existing natural gas heating systems can be used until 2045 without conversion,” warned Ingbert Liebing, Managing Director of the Association of Municipal Enterprises (VKU), in an interview with the F.A.Z.
Helmut Buender
Business correspondent in Düsseldorf.
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The head of the municipal utility association refers to the gradual conversion of the infrastructure and the network costs. With each additional consumer who switches from gas to a heat pump, the infrastructure costs for the remaining gas customers increase. “At some point, a tipping point will be reached where natural gas operation is simply no longer worthwhile or simply becomes too expensive for the remaining customers,” says Liebing. By then, at the latest, only climate-friendly “green” gases, district heating or even the heat pump will remain.