Germany need policy changes for energy efficient renovations
The report claims that almost all of Germany’s building sector, except for residential buildings younger than 20 years, could be renovated with a positive pay-back within the next 15 years; however it argues that improvements are currently only cost-effective on a third of the floor area over the 15-year period.
The paper, which highlights how Germany is not on course to meet its 40 per cent emissions reduction target by 2020, emphasises how the right policy levers can lead to affordable and deep renovation measures, resulting in significant carbon reduction, with the report’s timeframe, limited at 2030, aiming to allow for “more realistic assumption on cost developments.”
The analysis argues that a number of additional policy measures are needed to improve the energy efficiency of Germany’s building stock on a big scale, including setting an appropriate strategic context for the measures, providing economic and financial incentives such as Feed-In-Tariffs, effectively targeted financial support and providing the right support infrastructure such as one-stop-shops and training programmes.
BPIE claims that improving Germany’s energy performance can substantially cut energy use, while delivering multiple benefits, including cost savings, job creation, improved energy security, increased comfort and better productivity, along with environmental benefits, but argues that changes need to be made for that to happen.
“At the current renovation rate of 1 per cent of floor area each year, it would take 100 years to renovate the existing stock. Furthermore, most renovations do not achieve the full energy-saving potential at present,” says the report.
“Applying the right policy levers in Germany can lead to affordable and deep renovation measures. This year 2016 will be crucial for the development of German policies for climate protection, energy efficiency and buildings performance.”
BPIE’s analysis, produced alongside TU Vienna and the Fraunhofer Institute ISI, incorporates political factors such as subsidies, energy price, transactions costs and learning curves leading to cost reductions; while also putting an additional economic value on comfort.
