Report: Renovating EU houses could save 44% of energy for heating
With a tripling of the current renovation rate, almost all residential buildings in the European Union could be renovated by 2050, saving 44% of final energy used in space heating, a new report shows.
The decarbonisation of Europe’s building stock is a major challenge. Buildings still account for 40% of the EU’s total energy consumption and 36% of CO2 emissions, and these numbers have consistently resisted efforts to reduce them.
Already in 2020, the European Commission stressed that building renovations “could reduce the EU’s total energy consumption by 5-6% and lower carbon dioxide emissions by about 5%.”
As EU lawmakers examine a proposed revision of the bloc’s Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD), a new report tempts lawmakers with big-time energy savings – provided the pace of home renovations is increased significantly.
If all existing residential buildings in the EU were renovated, “44% of final energy used for space heating, could be saved,” says the report released on Wednesday (18 January) by the Building Performance Institute (PBIE), a think-tank.
According to BPIE modelling, up to 777 Terawatt hours (TWh) in energy savings – equivalent to the electricity consumption of Germany and Spain combined – would be achieved by insulating roofs and walls of the EU’s residential buildings.
The biggest winners, in absolute terms, would be Germany, France, Italy and Poland. If all their buildings were to be renovated, they could save energy worth 214, 113, 115, and 52 Terawatt hours (TWh) respectively, the study found.
For Germany, the potential savings amount to 30% of today’s annual electricity consumption – on heating alone.
But getting there won’t be an easy task. The report stressed that European roofs would need to be renovated, dropping their average temperature pass-through capacity, the so-called u-value, by a factor of six. House walls would need to be made more efficient by a factor of five.
“This is within our reach. Key facts are that insulation is an already existing and available technology,” explains Katarzyna Wardal-Szmit, EU public affairs manager at Knauf Insulation.
Additionally, “improving energy performance of residential building envelopes in the EU contributes to EU energy security” and achieving the EU’s climate targets, the authors of the report explained.
“According to the International Energy Agency, in 2023 the European Union could see a supply-demand gap in natural gas as wide as 57 billion cubic meters,” stressed Wardal-Szmit.
Much of the potentially missing gas could be compensated through renovating homes, as fossil gas is a key source of household heat. For Europe as a whole, full renovation of EU residential buildings would save 777 TWh of gas – almost half the amount Russia exported to Europe in 2021, the study found.
To achieve the degree of building renovation necessary to achieve this goal, the authors start from the current rate of comprehensive building renovation of 1%.
Wile the EU’s flagship Renovation Wave initiative aims to double that rate to 2%, the BPIE study says a rate of 3% is needed by 2035 to bring all residential buildings in Europe at the necessary level of energy consumption. And to hit net-zero emissions by mid-century, the renovation rate must be brought up to 4% by 2045.
Otherwise, if renovations stagnate at 2%, only 66% of the estimated energy savings potential will be harvested, the study found.
Policy recommendations
To harvest those savings, the authors of the report call on lawmakers to strengthen the EU’s Energy Performance of Buildings directive, which is currently under revision.
For one, they insist that the EPBD should define “deep renovations” that can contain heat bleed-off and prioritise them.
Additionally, the building’s directive should boost the renovations of worst-performing buildings through so-called “minimum energy performance standards” (MEPS). This should be done by focusing on individual buildings – something EU countries fiercely oppose.
The authors also stress the importance of redirecting funding. “Funds currently used for emergency relief measures against high energy prices should be progressively phased out and redirected to support building renovation programmes,” they insist. There, the focus should be on the worst-performing buildings.
Government support for fossil gas boilers, that heat much of Central Europe’s houses, should be “stopped, and funding should be redirected to support the rollout of renewable heating alternatives.”
Fuente: EURACTIV