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EU rules out banning gas boilers, aims for ‘gradual phase-out’ instead
(EurActiv, 15 Oct 2021) The European Commission will not propose banning gas-fired home boilers “overnight”, a senior EU official has said, explaining that differences in energy mix between EU member states are just too big to apply a one-size-fits-all solution.
Will the European Commission put forward regulations to push gas boilers out of the EU market, like it did with the internal combustion engine in the car sector?
“It’s a difficult one,” admitted Paula Pinho, director at the European Commission’s energy directorate.
On the one hand, the EU executive has indeed introduced requirements across various policy programmes “in order to make sure that we gradually phase out gas boilers,” Pinho said at a European Parliament webinar earlier this week.
“But we also need to look at where the different member states stand,” she added, saying some EU countries “are much, much more advanced” than others in terms of decarbonisation.
This means gas boilers are likely to stick around for longer in some countries than in others, Pinho said.
“We do understand that this cannot occur overnight with a ban,” she explained. “So basically the idea is to gradually allow for the phase-out and put EU recovery money only where we can ensure efficient and sustainable heating. But not to go for the radical solution which would be to simply ban a technology that we see is still very widespread, and is still a reality in many homes.”
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EurActiv, 15 Oct 2021: EU rules out banning gas boilers, aims for ‘gradual phase-out’ instead
