JULY - AUGUST 2025 19ELECTRICAL BUSINESS REVIEW EUROPECXOINSIGHTSHEATING HEAT PUMP: NEW CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR SEMICONDUCTORSBy Giacomo Fiocchi, Senior Director of Electronics, Ariston GroupMore than 60% of the current energy consumption for heating globally is based on fossil fuels like gas, oil, and coal. Heat pumps powered by low-emissions electricity, are the central technology in the global transition to secure sustainable heating. The heat pump market has been growing strongly in recent years, due to falling costs and strong incentives. Global heat pump sales rose by nearly 15 percent in 2021, double the average of the past decade, led by the European Union where they rose by around 35 percent. Several initiatives from the European Union, like `RE Power EU', will accelerate the transition from traditional fossil fuels to renewable energy-based heating systems like heat pumps. Europe is expected to add more than 43 million heat pumps to the current 20 million installations by 2030, heating half of its buildings with renewable energy. The total heat pump stock will reach nearly 60 million units, significantly contributing to cleaner air and grid stability. This is what new forecasts from the European Heat Pump Association (EHPA), based on aggregated data collected by EHPA's national member associations in 21 European countries, reveal. Based on recent sales figures, by 2030, there will be an estimated 253 million heat pump systems installed globally.The significant growth of these products lead the semiconductors sector to new challenges like highly efficient and affordable power components and a significant reduction of the time-to-market. We could identify three major categories of products that play a significant role in this growth: power electronics, control electronics and IoT devices.The heat pump itself consists of a compressor, which moves a refrigerant through a refrigeration cycle, and a heat exchanger, which extracts heat from the source.The power electronics modulates the compressor rotational speed by acting on the frequency of the motor power supply to control the compressor capacity. The power semiconductors are the core of the power electronics with transistors and diodes able to switch hundreds of amps and hundreds of volts in microseconds. Most common technology are Insulated-Gate Bipolar Transistors IGBTs) and Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor Field Effect Transistor (MOSFETs) but looking to the common challenges like power density and efficiency increase it makes sense to monitor the evolution driven from the automotive for the EV's. All major players are trying to get as much power in the smallest space without affecting the thermal performances. SiC and of GaN are playing a significant role offering high switching speeds, reduced switching losses, higher efficiency, and ruggedness. In term of sensors most of the compressors adopt sensorless motor drives ensuring lower cost, higher reliability, minimized hardware complexity, good noise immunity and reduced maintenance."Control electronics lead the functional and safety behavior of the heat pumps, ensuring hi-level performances of the machine and leading the energy management of a more complex domestic system"Giacomo Fiocchi
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