A nationwide analysis shows how the costs for the different types of heating will develop in 2026. Only one heat carrier becomes cheaper.
Heating will be more expensive this year for almost all forms of heat. Photo: Gemini
Dusseldorf. Since the start of the Iran War, the cost of crude oil has risen sharply. Accordingly, the heating oil obtained from it becomes more expensive. The “Heating Mirror” published today, Tuesday, shows what surcharge consumers have to expect in the heating season that is about to begin.
The data collection for the heating mirror is carried out by the non-profit consulting company CO2Online. With funding from the Federal Environment Ministry, it collects information on the costs of various heat carriers every year. For the current analysis, CO2Online recorded the values of 67,000 buildings, including single-family and multi-family homes.
The forecast for the entire year 2026 takes into account how the heat requirement will change due to the weather compared to the previous year. For this purpose, CO2Online uses data from the German Weather Service. In addition, the average prices for the individual energy sources calculated up to the summer are included.
Gas costs are falling thanks to a one-off effect
For the heating types district heating and heat pumps, there are higher costs of a maximum of three percent. This is primarily due to inflation. If you take inflation out of the equation, heat pumps and district heating will stagnate nominally in price in the long term.
However, this is only possible if the energy networks are converted primarily to renewable energies in the future, says Alexander Steinfeldt, who is jointly responsible for the heating mirror at CO2Online. This will require continued investment in the coming years, which will initially make heating with district heating more expensive in the short term. The investment costs for a heat pump only pay off after a few years.
According to Heizspiegel, the price of gas has fallen slightly. The reason for this is that the higher wholesale prices resulting from the Iran war have not yet fully reached consumers. Because many customers get their gas through contracts with a price guarantee.
In addition, the gas storage levy was completely eliminated at the beginning of the year. The federal government introduced the additional cost item in the wake of the energy crisis in 2022 in order to finance the filling of the gas storage facilities. Most recently, the levy was 0.289 cents per kilowatt hour; consumers have not had to pay it since January.
“However, this is a one-off effect,” points out Steinfeldt. In the long term, gas will be one of the most expensive forms of heating, among other things because the price of CO2 will continue to rise in the future.
Pellets increase almost as much as oil
Wood pellets have also become significantly more expensive this year. They are used as fuel in automatic heating systems. Unlike fossil fuels, their price increase is not related to the raw material markets, but rather to regional characteristics.
The pellets mostly consist of waste products that are created in the sawmill. When sawing, around 40 percent of the wood falls to the ground as chips, flour or chips. Damaged wood - trees that have to be felled due to storms, drought or insect infestation - is also processed into the light brown sticks.
If this waste from wood processing is missing, the material to produce pellets is also missing. “The slow construction situation is therefore indirectly noticeable in the price,” says Martin Bentele, managing director of the German Energy Wood and Pellet Association.
The combination of dry springs and a lot of precipitation in the summer has also meant that the bark beetle has not been able to spread as much in the past two years. Fewer trees had to be felled because of their damage, and even less wood was available for pellets.
Despite the significant price increase, pellets are currently the cheapest heat carrier after the heat pump. The forecast in Heizspiegel shows that the price for the pellets will also develop moderately in the long term.
As Europe's largest producer, Germany can also cover its entire need for pellets itself. Consumers are therefore not dependent on imports.
Switching to pellet heating is particularly worthwhile in old buildings
However, the Federal Environment Agency no longer generally assesses wood as sustainable due to the resulting greenhouse gases and fine dust. The heat pump remains the best choice, especially in well-insulated new buildings.
In existing buildings with high heat requirements that are difficult to renovate, however, heat pumps may be technically or economically impractical. Especially if an old oil heating system is to be replaced in these cases, switching to pellets could be worthwhile. The new silo for the wood pellets can then be built in place of the oil tank.
