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Comment by looofooo0 | Hacker News Reader

Well Norway (Hydro), Sweden (hydro and nuclear) and Finland (Nuclear Wind Hydro) all have cheap electricity which seems to be the main driver for adoption.

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Hrm. It might be cheaper than in Germany but its not cheap in Sweden except for the most nordic parts (hydro).

South Sweden - i think the prices are more on par with germany.

Well in the south you might need to factor the gas cost in (vs Germany) and also the network effects of heat pump being the main form of heating in sweden.

The south of Sweden is expensive because Sweden did away with the previous single energy market and split into zones with sales abroad. Often Swedish producers sell to Germany at the same time Swedish consumers are forced to buy from German producers. It was a big thing about 'free market' and iirc Denmark was upset that Danish manufacturing could not compete with the price of energy across the straights in Sweden. The solution was to make energy more expensive in Sweden.

I was solely talking about heat pump adoption due end user prices.

I know I paid about 1000EUR for an air-air heat-pump with install in Sweden, but that was a decade ago and they cost 1500-2000EUR total these days. I also have a fancy big ground-source heat-pump bigger than most residential ones and that cost under 10000EUR total. So not sure what makes them so expensive in other countries; you'd hope competition kept prices competitive.

It is weird, especially since Germany usually is quite a bit cheaper when it comes to tools, construction materiel etc. compared to Sweden.

In Germany you have very strict laws for construction of water heating. For example the need to install thermostat on any heater even for floor heating. But this implies a lot of complexity for the heat pump installation. Cheap DIY community basically removes all the thermostats and soley controls heating through water temp and flow control to the radiators.

Sweden used to have very cheap electricity. That's why there are so many houses with electric radiators. Far more expensive now.

That is why so many houses here now have air-to-air heat pumps. That is by far the cheapest way to improve heating in an old house with only electric radiators and no existing water heat pipes.

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