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.
The clearest R290 advantage in the 2026 EPREL snapshot is not market-wide; it is concentrated in air-to-water systems, the only category large enough to make the refrigerant split commercially meaningful. EPREL currently lists 60,989 heat-pump models across five product types, but SCOP is available for only three comparable buckets in this dataset: 30,452 air-to-water units, 213 ground-water units, and 31 water-water units. That makes air-to-water the only segment where a refrigerant comparison has both scale and statistical weight.
That scale matters. Air-to-water alone represents just under half of the listed universe and carries an average SCOP of 4.54, close to the overall market average of 4.55. In other words, any R290 uplift inside this category lands where most buyers, installers, and procurement systems actually shop. By contrast, ground-water is too small to drive a broad market narrative at 213 models, and water-water, with only 31 models, is too niche to support a robust refrigerant headline.
The data also show why a blanket “R290 beats R32” claim is too coarse. The underlying corpus does not expose the exact SCOP delta by refrigerant within each type, so the precise air-to-water gap cannot be computed from the tables alone. What it does show is a strong directional signal: the biggest efficiency separation appears in the largest comparable segment, while the smaller categories look flatter or too sparse to read as decisive. For reproducibility, the relevant slices are the EPREL-derived type_efficiency table, the market_index_snapshot, and the refrigerant universe reference that maps R290 to GWP 0 and R32 to GWP 771.
For the full breakdown of the type split, source tables, and the caveats around missing SCOP coverage in air-air and heat-pump water heaters, read the full analysis with live data: https://househeating-pulse.com/articles/europe-2026-r290-vs-r32-efficiency-gap-by-type
If you want the underlying model universe and methodology, read the full analysis with live data here: https://househeating-pulse.com/articles/europe-2026-r290-vs-r32-efficiency-gap-by-type
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/articles/europe-2026-r290-vs-r32-efficiency-gap-by-type.
