Short read. This is a ~300-word brief based on the full analysis at Househeating Pulse. For the interactive charts, brand-level data, and source tables, open the original.
Austria looks like the only one of the three markets where the whole stack lines up: tariff economics, grid carbon, climate demand and subsidy depth. On the latest Eurostat household bands, its electricity-to-gas ratio is 2.68, comfortably below the 3.7 break-even line for a SCOP 4 heat pump. Croatia also sits below that reference point at 3.05, but Romania is the outlier at 5.11, which leaves it 1.41 above break-even and materially harder to justify on running-cost parity alone.
The country comparison table built from Eurostat, NASA POWER, the EEA and the Househeating Pulse subsidy register shows why that matters. Austria’s electricity is €0.3272/kWh and gas €0.1221/kWh, while Croatia is cheaper on both fuels at €0.1658/kWh and €0.0543/kWh. Romania lands between them on electricity at €0.2893/kWh but stays close to Croatia on gas at €0.0566/kWh. The important signal is not absolute price, but relative spread: the 3.7 threshold is crossed only in Romania.
Support policy and climate sharpen the contrast. Austria records one active subsidy and a maximum support level of €23,000, tied to “Raus aus Öl”. Croatia and Romania show zero active subsidies in the current register. At the same time, Austria is the coldest market in the trio at 3309.19 HDD₁₈, yet it also has the cleanest grid at 89 gCO₂/kWh, versus 134 in Croatia and 240 in Romania.
The EPREL side of the story is broader than any one country. Househeating Pulse’s live market index currently tracks 60,989 models from 777 manufacturers, with Daikin alone accounting for 14,668 models and 24.05% share. For developers, the key takeaway is reproducibility: the country view is a join across the country comparison dashboard, the subsidy register, and the EPREL-backed market index. The real difference between these markets is not catalogue size, but how much of the catalogue is economically deployable under local data slices.
Read the full analysis with live data at https://househeating-pulse.com/guides/2026-heat-pump-market-index-austria-vs-croatia-vs-romania.
Househeating Pulse aggregates 60,000+ EPREL-registered heat-pump models across Europe — efficiency rankings, refrigerant trends, country-level installed prices and subsidies. Data from EPREL, Eurostat, NASA POWER. Full analysis at https://househeating-pulse.com/guides/2026-heat-pump-market-index-austria-vs-croatia-vs-romania.
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