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

“Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” Samuel Beckett’s mantra sounds like a perfect fit for the European Union’s latest attempt to revamp its green buildings law, writes Frédéric Simon.

Europe faces a major challenge to renovate its building stock and achieve its carbon emission targets. Doing so will not be achieved through public funds alone, but also requires investment from private funds. Public authorities can help to leverage private investment through financial instruments, which can incentivise investments by overcoming market failures and distortions.
A number of financial instruments have been tested and used and are ready to be replicated throughout Europe, and the Member States will need to be ready to implement financial instruments in their operational programmes for the next financial period of 2021-2027.

This week, the Buildings Performance Institute Europe (BPIE) published a new report on nearly zero energy building standards in six member states that show decarbonisation of new buildings in is not happening fast enough. A failure to decarbonise newly constructed buildings could prevent the EU from achieving its climate targets for 2030 and 2050, according…

Thousands of buildings across Europe will need to be renovated on an unprecedented scale if climate and greenhouse gas reduction targets are to be met. Lawmakers’ minds are turning to how best to undertake the Herculean task

Women are more likely to live in energy poverty, something that needs to be reflected in EU policy as it rolls out its renovation wave, writes Michaela Kauer.

Michaela Kauer is the director of the Brussels office of the City of Vienna, linking Vienna with EU policy and global sustainability goals.

Currently, the European Union is undertaking significant efforts to improve the energy efficiency of the built environment, with a huge renovation wave strategy brought forward. The aspiration is to make this initiative in the framework of the EU’s Green Deal a participatory and inclusive one.

However, the Commission still fails to clarify whether this approach will be gender-sensitive in vision and process, not the least in delivery. The first issue at stake is to increase the visibility of gender inequalities in energy poverty and participatory actions.

This will allow informing policymakers at the EU level to better account for gender justice in the field of housing and urban renewal.

Women are more likely to live in energy poverty, something that needs to be reflected in EU policy as it rolls out its renovation wave, writes Michaela Kauer.

The reduction of energy demand in buildings through the adoption of energy efficiency policy is a key pillar of the European Union (EU) climate and energy strategy. Energy Efficiency first emerged in the EU energy policy agenda in the 1970s and was progressively transformed with shifting global and EU energy and climate policies and priorities.
The paper offers a review of EU energy policies spanning over the last half century with a focus on policy instruments to encourage measures on energy efficiency in new and existing buildings.
Starting from early policies set by the EU in response to the Oil Embargo in the 1973, the paper discusses the impact of EU energy policies in stimulating energy efficiency improvements in the building sector ranging from the SAVE Directive to the recently 2018 updated Energy Performance of Buildings Directive and Energy Efficiency Directive.
The review explores the progress made over the last 50 years in addressing energy efficiency in buildings and highlights successes as well as remaining challenges.
It discusses the impact of political priorities in reshaping how energy efficiency is addressed by EU policymakers, leading to a holistic approach to buildings, and provides insights and suggestions on how to further exploit the EU potential to save energy from buildings.

The long-term renovations strategies that EU countries submitted last year to the European Commission are not in line with the bloc's objective of reaching climate-neutrality by 2050, according to fresh analysis due to be published this week.

Work to increase the energy performance of Europe’s building stock remains sluggish, despite long standing political commitments and the launch of the EU’s Renovation Wave initiative in late 2020. Thomas Boermans, from German energy supply company E.ON, believes considering building renovation as an infrastructure project could help accelerate the movement

Investing in energy efficiency and renewable energy has never been so rewarding and so easy. The new 'Federal Funding for Efficient Buildings' programme has been launched, featuring a streamlined application procedure for all funding – including large amounts.

The Federal Government wants to achieve these savings primarily through the 'Federal Funding for Efficient Buildings' (Bundesförderung für effiziente Gebäude – BEG) (in German only) programme, which was launched on 1 January 2021 and forms a core element of the 2030 Climate Action Programme (in German only) . The funding is to give a powerful boost to the energy transition in the buildings sector and replaces previous programmes to promote energy efficiency and renewable energy in this segment. These include the successful 'CO2 Building Modernisation Programme' (implemented as the KfW 'Energy-efficient Construction and Refurbishment' programme) and the 'Market Incentive Programme' to promote the use of renewables for heating – applications for which hit a record high (in German only) in 2020.

Buildings are accountable for 53% of carbon emissions in the city of Rome, and this is the main issue that needs to be addressed in order to achieve climate neutrality, Rome mayor Roberto Gualtieri told EURACTIV in an interview.

Energy consumed in the residential sector accounts for up to 30 per cent of Latvia’s energy usage. Approximately 23,000 multi-apartment buildings need to be renovated, but only 1,600 buildings have been insulated since 2009, a renovation rate of 0.5 per year. Will Latvia seize the chance and use REPowerEU chapters for renovation?

The revision of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) is due to be proposed on 14 or 15 December as part of a decarbonisation package aiming to bring Europe’s gas sector in line with its climate goals.

But while many praised a draft version of the text which circulated last month, EURACTIV has learnt that a new draft has lowered the ambition, including on minimum energy performance standards and renovation plans EU countries would need to create.

Across Europe, 50 million households struggle with energy poverty stemming from low incomes, high energy bills, poor energy efficiency, as well as inadequate housing. The EU’s Renovation Wave, a ‘flagship’ of the European Green Deal, provides a unique opportunity to tackle Europe’s inadequate housing while contributing to EU climate targets, writes Anna Kompatscher.

Que retenir de la « Mission Sichel » et de ses propositions pour aider les ménages à rénover les « passoires énergétiques » ? Hadrien Hainaut d’I4CE revient dans ce billet sur les propositions les plus importantes à ses yeux : un accompagnement renforcé, des aides publiques pour les rénovations les plus performantes et des prêts adaptés. Pour lui, ces mesures prises ensemble pourraient déboucher sur un véritable programme de rénovation. A condition d’y consacrer des moyens suffisants toutefois, en particulier pour l’accompagnement dont le budget national ne dépasse pas 100M€/an aujourd’hui. Ces propositions peuvent d’ores et déjà faire avancer le débat sur la rénovation qui a lieu en ce moment à l’Assemblée Nationale.

Les Etats membres privilégient la décarbonation de leur mix énergétique mais délaissent la performance énergétique de leur parc immobilier.

The European Committee of the Regions (CoR) has unanimously adopted an opinion on the Renovation Wave , the EU's plan to upgrade the energy performance of Europe's building stock. Accounting for 40% of Europe's energy consumption and 36% of greenhouse gas emissions (GHG), the renovation of buildings is key for the EU to reach climate neutrality by 2050. Cities and regions call for a revision of state aid schemes, more flexible budget rules to maximise investments and renovations, subnational targets for the renovation of buildings and the integration of renewable energy sources in renovation projects.

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."