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HVAC industry worldwide - statistics & facts
The heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) technology provides environmental comfort through thermal manipulation (heating and air conditioning) and acceptable indoor air quality (ventilation). Sometimes refrigeration is also included in the field as HVACR. The HVAC industry is largely fueled by regional regulations and differences: Asia was said to have one of the largest HVAC market sizes, with a larger demand for air conditioners than in other regions. Meanwhile, Italy was one of the European countries with the biggest heat pump markets in 2020. Due to these differences between countries, there is little to no comparative information on this competitive market. In the United States alone, for example, a certain level of fragmentation can be observed, as the number of employees in the plumbing and HVAC industry varied widely from state to state.
A growing demand, but problems persist
It is generally assumed that growing concerns worldwide on climate change and awareness of energy efficiency will lead to a growing demand of climate control systems. This development will be further propelled by a growing amount of government initiatives, providing tax cuts to such systems on top of home upgrades of refurbishments. There are still issues to be solved, however. Take the differences in installation costs between, for instance, several U.S. cities: Installation costs in New York were approximately 74 percent higher than the average cost for the 30 largest U.S. cities combined. Cities found in the state of Texas made up the other end of that spectrum as costs in San Antonio, Houston and Dallas were between 30 to 40 percent lower than said average. Additionally, there is the worldwide shortage in the work force as a lack of skilled professionals could hinder the development of the HVAC market. The number of HVAC employees in the UK is forecast to increase slightly during the next five years.Smart home and HVAC: is the future at hand?
Smart homes are increasingly named as a tool that could help in achieving residential energy efficiency. In 2021, over 40 percent of realtors considered smart buildings an important building feature for their clients. How much, then, will HVAC grow in the future when paired with smart home, or IoT (“Internet of Things”) devices? There are several indicators to predict this. Forecasts on the number of connected devices for HVAC purposes, on the one hand, estimated that this figure will have more than doubled between 2019 and 2023 – and more than tripled between 2019 and 2025. On the other hand, the revenue of HVAC controls was believed to also increase at a very fast pace in the coming years.
