Energy Transition in Europe | www.energy-cities.eu

Buildings are in the spotlight as the EU contemplates a long, hard winter on the back of an energy price crisis intensified by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Already the EU’s ‘Fit for 55’ climate package aimed to double renovation rates by 2030 and pioneer minimum energy performance standards for buildings. The REPowerEU proposals – issued in response to the Russian invasion – complement this with a solar rooftop plan and raise the EU’s overall energy efficiency goal for 2030 from 9% to 13%.

It is about time the UK government got to grips with retrofitting existing housing to scale up home energy efficiency across the country. One way to do this would be to establish a one-stop shop on every high street; offering trusted advice, recommendations for trained suppliers, and help with grants and other incentives. Our struggling town centres could do with the community buzz of a genuinely useful venue and there are plenty of empty commercial properties to choose from. It could provide employment, generate training locally, encourage re-skilling of workforces, and help us reach our climate goals. Plus our houses might actually get warmer.

How can historic buildings become more energy efficient while conserving their heritage values? A doctoral thesis provides the answer by presenting a new method for combining climate goals and heritage values in historic buildings stocks.

European Union countries will rally behind the bloc's plan to massively expand building renovations to cut emissions, according to a draft document, but it did not explicitly endorse using legally-binding energy performance standards to do it.

Dès 2011 Nantes Métropole créait une équipe dédiée à la rénovation énergétique des copropriétés. Depuis, son action n’a cessé de s’enraciner dans le territoire, notamment auprès des syndics de copropriétés. Elle va bientôt s’amplifier avec l’arrivée de nouveaux outils.

 

The City of Ghent provides 13 million euros to expand the supply of energy loans for all residents of Ghent. A new system of cheap, long-term energy loans should make it possible to bundle and accelerate far-reaching energy performance. The new plan will start in the spring of 2021. The need for loans is high. Half of the …

Soaring energy prices and gas supply disruptions are mounting pressure on Europe to renovate its ageing, inefficient buildings as governments scramble to protect citizens from big bills.

Sufficiency : the key element to reach carbon neutrality

Sufficiency, a disruptive concept that’s often distorted, must be understoodas a limitation of our needs and consumption to what is useful. It supplements efficiency toreach the much desired objective of a low carbon society. Thus sufficiency has become (again) a key element of the ecological transition. ADEME’s prospective study Transition(s) 2050 places it at the heart of three of the four scenarios laid out. This letterdescribes this in more detail in order to better inform you about the essential and profound changes we need to introduce.

Citizen-led retrofitting, long the poor relation of climate policy, could now be its secret weapon in accelerating rapid transition. Home renovation through the citizen-led model is making breakthroughs from Tipperary in Ireland to Texas in the United States, and with the European Union carving out space for it in their continent wide-approach to improving energy efficiency.

We have reusable cups, bags and bottles: so why are our buildings still single use?

While some other sectors are gradually reducing their consumption and waste generation to meet carbon emissions targets, the construction industry seems to be lagging behind. This is particularly concerning considering that it’s responsible for 38% of global greenhouse gas emissions and 62% of the UK’s waste.

Retrofitting Britain’s homes so that they stay warmer and don’t rely on fossil fuels could be our first significant step to tackling the climate crisis, as well as creating a million good green jobs. But how do we do it?

Dans une politique de transition énergétique comportant sobriété et sources d’énergie décarbonées, le chauffage des logements est un secteur essentiel. Comment en satisfaire les besoins ? Parmi les solutions possibles, la complémentarité entre rénovation thermique des logements et utilisation des réseaux de chaleur renouvelable mérite une attention particulière.

La réhabilitation thermique fait la une de l’actualité alors que la chaleur renouvelable est absente du discours public. Pourtant, l’une comme l’autre sont des solutions alternatives ou complémentaires permettant de décarboner le secteur du logement. Dans le cas de 2 000 logements chauffés au départ au gaz naturel, l’évaluation des performances énergétique, environnementale et économique de différentes combinaisons de ces deux solutions, pour la collectivité et l’usager final, en apporte la preuve. La chaleur renouvelable présente de bons résultats en termes de réduction des gaz à effet de serre (GES) et d’économie pour l’usager. La réhabilitation thermique est moins efficace mais a d’autres atouts tels que l’amélioration du bâti et le confort des occupants. Passer à une vitesse supérieure en matière de transition énergétique suppose de redonner toute sa place à la chaleur renouvelable, de relancer la taxe carbone dans le segment du chauffage pour mieux garantir aux propriétaires et aux locataires un avantage financier, d’agréger des financements publics et privés (guichet unique régional) ainsi que de simplifier les procédures de montage des projets tout en s’adaptant aux réalités du terrain.

To meet Europe’s 2030 climate targets the buildings sector must cut its emissions by 60%. That means annual renovations need to jump by an order of magnitude; at the moment it’s crawling at 1% per year. Worse, standard renovations save very little energy, just 9% in homes and 16% in commercial buildings. It’s the deep …

According to data collected by Eurostat, nearly one-fifth of Portugal's 10 million citizens admit to being unable to keep their homes adequately warmed, far more than the average 6.9 percent of the EU population that suffers from the same dilemma.
"Portugal is one of the EU countries with the greatest number of people who suffer from energy poverty," said João Pedro Gouveia, lead researcher at Nova University Lisbon's Center for Environmental and Sustainability Research. "People either spend huge portions of their money paying for heat, or adapt to the situation by going without it and wearing coats, hats and gloves indoors, living in conditions that people in the rest of Europe wouldn't tolerate in this day and age."

If it enshrines into its upcoming climate bill mandatory building renovation, France will answer the Citizens’ Convention on Climate’s call for better homes and contribute significantly to the EU’s 55% emission reduction target by 2030, writes Etienne Charbit.

Massifier la rénovation énergétique, concentrer les aides sur les actions en profondeur, les conditionner à l’atteinte de résultats et travailler avec les collectivités : dans un rappor