The materiality of space heating: heat pumps and heating transitions in Twentieth-century Switzerland

Abstract

ABSTRACT In the past thirty years, heat pumps have increasingly gained importance in Switzerland as an environmentally-friendly technology for space heating. The paper traces their history of back to World War One when their use was first envisioned by experts in order to save coal. Despite promising pilot projects, heat pumps were marginalized by the end of the 1950s. It was only in the 1990s that they once again became a valid option. Their marginalization has previously been explained with the availability of cheap oil, their rediscovery in the 1990s with favorable policies. This essay aims at complementing these explanations by focusing on the materiality of space heating (energy, buildings, and heating systems), a topic that so far has only been touched upon in the history of renewables. By embedding heat pumps into a broader energy history, the essay provides new insights into both realized and envisioned energy transitions.