Heat pumps are expected to play a critical role in decarbonizing heat provision in buildings. However, their high purchase and installation costs — often coupled with a lack of familiarity with the technology — are barriers to uptake. Asset leasing could provide an alternative model to immediate purchasing. Under such schemes, a homeowner would pay monthly costs for the heat pump, as well as potentially its installation and maintenance. Now, Elizabeth Côté and Cristian Pons-Seres de Brauwer at the University of St. Gallen present results from a multi-country discrete choice experiment to understand homeowner preferences towards heat-pump leasing.
The researchers analysed responses from 915 single-family homeowners across France, Germany and Switzerland taken in early 2022. The experiment sought to understand the motivations behind and barriers to potential heat-pump adoption, as well as the preferences around how leasing models would best serve homeowners in the different countries. The researchers found that homeowners’ decisions were driven predominantly by desire for environmental protection and energy security, but that financial and technical factors were key barriers. The apparent lack of confidence in heat-pump technology was higher in Germany, where heat-pump deployment is also lower than in France and Switzerland. In terms of the lease model, homeowners liked the lack of upfront investment and models with all-inclusive service packages, whereby installation, maintenance and repair were covered. The researchers suggest this latter preference could be due to perceptions of a high risk of technological failure. Meanwhile, a long lease period — given as 15 years in the survey — detracted from the overall impression of the model.
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