Gas heaters are being installed less and less in new residential buildings in Germany. In the first half of this year, the proportion of approved residential buildings with primary gas heating fell to 16.2 percent, the Federal Statistical Office reported on Thursday. A year earlier, the share had been 25.5 percent. Compared to 2019, the proportion has even more than halved.

However, the statisticians see this as a long-term process driven by legal regulations. The war in Ukraine and the associated gas shortages have so far not had a clear impact on development. In the completed residential buildings, the proportion of gas is even higher: last year, the conventional energy source gas was still used in 34.3 percent of the houses.

Of the 60,200 residential buildings approved in the first half of 2022, almost three quarters (73.7 percent) should be heated primarily with renewable energies. In the first half of 2019, it was just under half. Heat pumps play the outstanding role here.