Sustainability in the electrical installation industry

Sustainability has been a hot topic in the last couple of years. The adoption rate increased following the events in Ukraine and the energy crisis that followed.

However, if we look at the HVAC installation market, it’s clear that the increased adaption rate flattened out somewhat, best illustrated by the decreasing numbers of heat pumps being sold in 2024. Overall the demand remained more or less the same, just the willingness to invest did not increase sufficiently. The early adopters already made the switch, but for the early majority financing remains a problem. Furthermore, the decreasing sense of urgency and unreliable incentives don’t help as well.

But what about the electrical installation market? Do we see similar developments there? This, and more, is the topic of our latest Q1 2024 report on sustainability in the European electrical installation monitor.

In short, yes and no. We do see that the percentage of projects where sustainability is taken into account increase strongly in Germany compared to 2022, increasing from 26% to 37%. However, in 2022 Germany had the lowest percentage of projects where sustainability was taken into account. In France and Spain, moderate increases of around 5% are visible but in the UK and Belgium, no growth has taken place compared to 2022. However, with 48% and 44% precent of all projects containing some form of sustainability, it is already on a relatively high level.

In most cases, LED lighting is mentioned as most used installation product in sustainable projects. Photovoltaics take the second place, although in some countries like France and the UK, PV is not the number two and significantly lower than in the other countries.

EV charging, HVAC solutions and battery storage solutions are perhaps not the most often installed products in sustainable projects, but the adoption rate has been increasing over time.

So it seems that, like in the HVAC market, the rapid increases of suitability have also flattened out. However, due to the generally speaking lower investments needed, we see the electrical market outperforming the HVAC market when it comes to sustainability. It remains however, a slow and gradual evolution and not a revolution.