Gas boilers, the EU reconsiders and withdraws the ban from 2029

A resounding step backwards. Which tells of how the wind of revision of the green targets, set by the previous European Commission, is beginning to blow strongly on the home as well in this legislature. Over the weekend, the EU executive put out for consultation the draft revision of Regulation 813/2013/Ue (the so-calledEcodesign), i.e. the updating of the text that regulates the standards that products placed on the European market must comply with. The draft measure radically changes course compared to the one circulated in spring 2023: if, at that time, a total ban on boilers was drawn up starting in 2029, the new parameters cancel any hypothesis of exclusion and admit both condensing and traditional appliances.

The issue comes through the tables attached to the measure. And it focuses on a parameter called 'minimum seasonal efficiency limit'. This parameter, in the text proposed two years ago, had been set too high for boilers: in fact, it cut off from the market any type of boiler, regardless of its technical characteristics and whether it could be fuelled with renewable fuels. In practice, it was a ban on boilers, which triggered very harsh reactions throughout the gas supply chain and led, after several steps, to the regulation ending up in a drawer, awaiting the new European Commission. It must be remembered that boilers currently sell over 900,000 units per year in Italy, most of which are condensing. So, that decision would have been a real earthquake.

Now the new revised draft, in consultation until 26 December, has emerged from the drawers of EU engineers, with a significant change of course for the gas sector. The table on efficiency limits has been heavily retouched and now sets looser technical standards that will leave both condensing and even traditional boilers on the market. In other words, a softer line is passed in which the objective of abandoning gas in domestic heating (still present in the Energy performance of buildings directive, Epbd) will not be achieved through regulatory constraints, but will be entrusted to the political and facilitating actions of Europe and the member countries.

With respect to this, a passage should be made on the Epbd, the green homes directive. The Ecodesign regulation regulates the marketing of products and does not directly touch the higher policy targets, which are set by the Epbd anyway. Thus, although there is no longer a ban on themarketing of boilers from 2029 in sight, the stakes of the directive remain. Here it is stipulated that member states must move towards the complete elimination of boilers fuelled by fossil fuels by 2040. The target - it must be emphasised - is only indicative, but the Commission will demand concrete action from the member states on this. Even if the step back on the bans that Brussels could directly impose now casts serious doubts on the practicability of the 2040 target.

In this context, Giuseppe Lorubio, president of Assotermica, the association of manufacturers of equipment and components for thermal systems, federated in Anima Confindustria, expressed his satisfaction: 'We welcome the European Commission'sreversal of the ban on the installation of boilers, a crazy measure that we have fought from the first moment because it would have irreparably damaged our industrial fabric and compromised the Community climate objectives. Italy has an ageing installed base, which requires structural interventions to be modernised and guarantee immediate benefits to citizens in terms of reducing energy bills and to the environment in terms of reducing emissions. Condensing boilers are an indispensable element of this design, being ready to use any type of renewable fuel and complemented by technologies such as solar thermal or heat pumps, with a view to factory-made hybrid appliances'. The final text of the regulation will be published after consultation in the first part of 2026. It will enter into force after two years. Thus, between mid-2028 and the beginning of 2029.