Use of shallow geothermal energy, in terms of ground coupled heat pumps (GCHP) for heating and cooling purposes, is an environmentally-friendly and cost-effective alternative with potential to replace fossil fuels and help mitigate global warming. Focusing on the recent results of the GEO.POWER project, this paper aims at examining the energy performance strategies and the future regional and national financial instruments for large scale introduction of geothermal energy and GCHP systems in both residential and industrial buildings. After a transferability assessment to evaluate the reproducibility of some outstanding examples of systems currently existing in Europe for the utilisation of shallow geothermal energy, a set of regulatory, economic and technical actions is proposed to encourage the GCHP market development and support geothermal energy investments in the frame of the existing European normative platforms. This analysis shows that many European markets are changing from a new GCHP market to growth market. However some interventions are still required, such as incentives, regulatory framework, certification schemes and training activities in order to accelerate the market uptake and achieve the main European energy and climate targets. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.