Abstract
Purpose of this paper is to provide a state of the art analysis of the space heating and cooling market in Europe. Data regarding energy demand for space heating, space cooling and domestic hot water preparation have been collected and critically analysed. Space heating and cooling demand data of the EU-15 member states have been evaluated following a bottom-up approach and compared with top-down acquired data. Results show that the energy demand for space cooling purposes of the EU-27 is significantly underestimated by top-down values. Furthermore, the EU-15 space cooling demand potential strongly exceeds the space heating demand. The ratio between potential and actual energy demand for space cooling is 6:1, while it is almost saturated for space heating.