Introduction

Founded in 2007 as shecco, ATMOsphere is a global, independent market accelerator for clean cooling and heating solutions using natural refrigerants and refrigerant-free technology. The company’s global team is located in Europe, the United States and Japan and boasts more than 50 years of industry experience.

The core team includes journalists, analysts, engineers, event organizers, designers and other highly skilled individuals with diverse backgrounds. As industry experts in this field, the team offers unique insights into trends and market size. This domain expertise is augmented by the power of ATMOsphere’s wider network of like-minded experts who share an ambition for scaling up the global clean cooling and heating economy.

ATMOsphere’s business includes news, a product marketplace, a directory, events and market research. As of December 2025, the company has held 89 events around the world. In 2022, ATMOsphere launched its natural refrigerants label, which serves as a global gold standard highlighting best-in-class manufacturers and contractors of natural refrigerant systems and components. Since 2025, the natural refrigerants label has included data on avoided TFA emissions.

Overall, the ATMOsphere platform offers a one-stop solution for investors, end users, original equipment manufacturers, component manufacturers, contractors and others with the goal of scaling up clean cooling and heating solutions. However, the real power of the ATMOsphere brand lies in its network.

It spans the globe and includes more than 50,000 industry stakeholders – including policymakers, end users, academics and manufacturers. ATMOsphere is not just a company but a community of people who believe that the future of cooling and heating is clean and natural.

For more information, visit atmosphere.cool

Natural refrigerants have been the future for commercial chillers and heat pumps in Europe for more than a decade now. In the mid-2010s manufacturers were touting propane chillers and heat pumps as direct replacements for HFC-based chillers and heat pumps. Companies working with CO₂ focused on the efficiency gains that could be achieved through system integration. Advances in low-charge ammonia provided the ability for the refrigerant to move from the industrial to the commercial sector.

While the logic was sound and systems were available, these were the right refrigerants at the wrong time. First cost was still a concern given that propane requires safety equipment to account for its flammability and CO₂ needs components rated for high pressures. The 2014 EU F-gas Regulation, though a watershed moment in refrigerant regulation, did not take aim at commercial chillers and heat pumps specifically.

What a difference a decade makes. The timing is finally right for natural refrigerants in commercial chillers and heat pumps in Europe.

The 2024 revision to the EU F-gas Regulation sent a clear message to the market that HFCs have no future in the European HVAC&R sector beyond 2050. The PFAS restriction proposal currently being considered by the European Chemicals Agency could slam the door shut on HFOs, too. More manufacturers have piled into the market and introduced new products, while those that made the first move have added to their lineups.

Natural refrigerant chillers and heat pumps have proven themselves in a wide range of commercial applications across Europe. The question is no longer whether propane chillers can safely provide space cooling for office buildings (they can) or if CO₂ chillers and heat pumps are efficient enough to justify the higher capital expenditures (they are), but rather how quickly will the shift to naturals be.

This report sets the foundation for answering that question. It does this by providing an overview of the market availability of commercial chillers and heat pumps with natural refrigerants as well as by estimating how many of these systems have been installed to date. This report also contains interviews with leading manufacturers and case studies detailing their work with these technologies.

The timing is finally right for commercial chillers and heat pumps using natural refrigerants in Europe, and this report shows why.

Numbers don’t lie, and the data we’ve gathered for this report shows that commercial chillers and heat pumps using natural refrigerants have arrived in Europe, albeit not in great quantities. Naturals represent a fraction of the market for commercial chillers and heat pumps for reasons my colleague Jan Dusek touched on in his note to readers.

That said, the groundwork has certainly been laid for the transition to naturals.

It started with regulation, with manufacturers pressuring the European Union to do more about f-gas emissions. Once regulators sent a signal that tougher measures against synthetics were in the works, manufacturers responded and began releasing new commercial chillers and heat pumps with natural refrigerants.

Production only increased once the 2024 EU F-gas Regulation became law. By our count there are more than 300 natural refrigerant-based commercial chillers and heat pumps available in Europe from more than 65 manufacturers. That figure will likely be much greater by the time you read this.

In addition to more products on the market, manufacturers have more experience with commercial HVAC, domestic hot water and process heating and cooling. This is evident in the “Deep Dives” featured in this report, which are combinations of Q&As and case studies with companies that are leaders in this space or are working to become one. These companies walk the walk by sharing the projects they’ve worked on, which includes a propane chiller that cools office workers and IT equipment at a newly built Berlin office tower and an integrated CO₂ system built for an Italian winemaker that delivers process cooling and useful heat.

However, for every end user unafraid to work with hydrocarbons or that sees the value in investing in CO₂ there are those operating on outdated information who still see synthetics as the only option. This report will hopefully serve as a first step toward setting the record straight and showing that the groundwork has indeed been laid for the transition to natural refrigerants in commercial chillers and heat pumps.

This report focuses on commercial chillers and heat pumps in Europe using natural refrigerants. It takes a dual focus and provides estimates on the market availability of these systems along with the total installed base as of December 2025.

This dual focus is intended to paint a more complete picture of the market. Relying on product availability alone would not provide an idea as to how these products have been received by end users. Showing just installation data would not indicate to what extent manufacturers have invested in natural refrigerant-based commercial chillers and heat pumps.

This report defines commercial chillers and heat pumps as those with a cooling or heating capacity between 30 to 400kW (8.5 to 113TR) per unit. Data on market availability and installations was gathered for products within this range.

Natural refrigerants in this report include CO₂ (R744), ammonia (R717), propane (R290), isobutane (R600a), butane (R600) and water (R718). For the purposes of this report, “Europe” encompasses the European Union, the U.K., Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, the non-EU Balkan states, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and the European portion of Russia.

The data gathering for this report was guided by the ATMO Model, which features a database of hundreds of clean cooling and heating companies and thousands of products. In addition to the database, the model features a proprietary algorithm for calculating the impact natural refrigerant-based heating and cooling solutions have on lowering CO₂ and TFA (trifluoroacetic acid) emissions.

ATMOsphere conducted desk research to gather data on the number of commercial chillers and heat pumps on the market in Europe. Data was gathered from the websites and product brochures of more than 65 companies, and the complete database includes more than 300 products split into four types: chillers, heat pumps, reversible heat pumps and four-pipe/polyvalent heat pumps. This data is an estimate as of August 2026.

Data on the installed base of commercial chillers and heat pumps in Europe was gathered from surveys and interviews with manufacturers. Desk research was also conducted, with information gathered from news articles, year-end financial and sustainability reports, as well as marketing material. Note that this data is an estimate as of December 2025.

This report focuses on commercial chillers and heat pumps in Europe using natural refrigerants. It provides an estimate of both the number of natural refrigerant-based commercial chillers and heat pumps on the market today as well as the installed base of these systems (as of December 2025). It also features in-depth interviews with manufacturers and case studies profiling their work.

This report defines “commercial” with regard to capacity, which is from 30 to 400kW per unit. These products can serve a wide range of applications, including: commercial HVAC, process cooling and heating, and domestic hot water production.

CO₂, propane and ammonia commercial chillers and heat pumps have been available in Europe for more than a decade. They’ve been used in a variety of applications, from air-conditioning hotels to process cooling in the food and beverage industry. However, their growth has been limited by concerns around safety (the flammability of propane and toxicity of ammonia) and higher first costs compared to synthetic systems.

The market for natural refrigerant-based commercial chillers and heat pumps began to develop in the mid-2010s as more manufacturers entered the space. EU-funded research projects and the rise of CO₂ in commercial refrigeration drove further technological advancements. In the early 2020s regulators began signaling that Europe would enact stricter f-gas legislation, which encouraged more manufacturers to enter the market. The 2024 revision to the EU F-gas Regulation, with its total ban on HFCs in new equipment by 2050 and earlier GWP limits for commercial chillers and heat pumps, further accelerated product development.

The market for natural refrigerant-based commercial chillers and heat pumps could receive a further boost if the proposed universal restriction on PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) currently under consideration by the European Chemicals Agency is implemented. The proposal defines PFAS broadly as any substance containing at least one fully fluorinated methyl or methylene carbon atom. Under this structural definition, most HFO refrigerants used or proposed for use in commercial chillers and heat pumps (for example R1234yf, R1234ze and blends built on them) fall within the proposal’s scope, as do many HFC/HFO blends.

Where the market currently stands shows that, while there is broad manufacturer support for natural refrigerant commercial chillers and heat pumps, there is no critical mass of installed equipment. As of August 2026, ATMOsphere estimates there are more than 300 commercial CO₂, ammonia and propane chillers and heat pumps on the market in Europe from more than 65 manufacturers.

As of December 2025 ATMOsphere estimates there were 27,000 commercial propane chillers and heat pumps installed in Europe (the installed base). In addition, ATMOsphere estimates there were 1,000 commercial CO₂ chillers and heat pumps installed in Europe.

While this data tells the story of where the market currently is, this report also contains in-depth interviews with leaders at five manufacturers that provide insight into where it’s headed. Refra, SCM Frigo, Secon, Systemair and TEKO were all interviewed for the report.

Refra and Secon spoke about their work with hydrocarbon heat pumps and chillers, and both acknowledged the role the 2024 EU F-gas Regulation has played in driving demand for their products. For its case study, Refra highlighted how its propane and isobutane heat pumps helped a town in England decarbonize its district heating network, while Secon focused on a propane chiller it provided to a newly built Berlin office building that cools workers and IT equipment.

TEKO and SCM Frigo both work with CO₂, with the former offering heat pumps and chillers and the latter currently in the process of rolling out its first-ever CO₂ heat pump. Both see demand for CO₂ across a wide swath of applications; TEKO is particularly bullish on commercial buildings with simultaneous demand for heating and cooling. That said, its case study focused on a chiller with heat recovery it built for an Italian winemaker to provide process cooling, while SCM Frigo detailed one of the first installations of its CO₂ heat pump at the factory of a Norwegian heat exchanger manufacturer where it provides space heating and comfort cooling.

Systemair is also working with CO₂ but hasn’t built a heat pump or chiller. Instead it is going to market with an air-handling unit (AHU) with an integrated CO₂ heat pump. The company sees big potential for its AHU with hotels, wellness facilities and hospitals. Its case study details the in-house testing of its AHU, which is providing space heating, comfort cooling and ventilation at one of its production plants.