European Commission must be more ambitious in its energy efficiency targets says building sector

The European Commission should set a target for retrofitting all of the continent’s existing buildings to a “Nearly Zero Energy” standard by 2050. That is the request in a letter to the Commission signed by the chief executives of 42 major building firms and six industry trade associations.

The target would be enshrined in the upcoming revision of the Energy Performance of Building Directive and the Energy Efficiency Directive, which are currently under review.

Arguing that “businesses, investors, citizens, governments, all need a clear 2050 vision to put the ambition level of the Paris Agreement into practice”, they state that doing so would provide an opportunity to create jobs and economic growth.

The letter reads: “It is clear that the Paris commitment cannot be honoured without drastically reducing energy consumption in our buildings; the EU building stock emits over one-third of our CO2 emissions, three-quarters of our buildings are inefficient, and up to four-fifths will still be in use in 2050. We need EU wide action to drive the transformation of our inefficient building stock and make it a resilient component of the energy system of the 21st century.”

It continues: “EU wide leadership and action in the construction and building sector will spur European jobs and growth (in particular for SMEs, which make up 90 per cent of the construction sector). A high level political commitment for renovation will give industry the much needed signal and certainty to unlock investments, in turn removing some of the market failures.

“Most of all, making Europe’s buildings better through a mass EU-wide renovation movement will bring invaluable benefits to the whole of society by helping deliver something that every European citizen wants and deserves: a comfortable, safe and affordable home. This is a ‘win-win’ for Europe.”

This target is in line with the aims of the World Green Building Council’s Advancing Net Zero project to make all the world’s buildings ‘net zero’ of emissions by 2050. It builds on a push to double efficiency by 2030.

Launched in June, this program involves Green Building Councils from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Netherlands, South Africa and Sweden who will develop clear action plans, with an aim to launch a national net zero certification.

Energy efficiency package postponed

Despite the backing of the European Parliament, the European Commission appears reluctant to back energy efficiency.

At the beginning of this week it was slammed by the Coalition on Energy Savings for its announcement that the energy efficiency package will not be launched before the end of the year.

The package will define a target for energy efficiency for 2030 and extend the main elements of the Energy Efficiency Directive beyond 2020, as well as discuss buildings’ energy performance and financing.

“This delay undermines the credibility of the European Commission to drive forward the EU with big and compelling projects like energy efficiency, which delivers benefits for people and business and which is the EU’s first action to fight climate change,” secretary general of the Coalition for Energy Savings Stefan Scheuer said.

“[European Commission] president [Jean-Claude] Juncker must not hesitate to deliver on his promise to propose a more ambitious and binding energy efficiency target for 2030.”

The European Parliament has repeatedly called for a binding 40 per cent energy reduction target by 2030 in line with the already identified cost-effective potential for implementing energy saving measures. The target is currently set at a reduction of 20 per cent in energy use by 2020.

Energy efficiency mortgage scheme

Further backing the increasing desire for making European buildings more energy efficient, a new financing initiative, that would potentially offer better borrowing rates on mortgages for homebuyers purchasing more energy-efficient homes or carrying out energy-saving retrofits within properties, was presented by energy and building sector professionals from across Europe last week.

The European Energy Efficiency Mortgage was launched at the World Green Building Council’s “Build Upon” summit in Madrid by the European Mortgage Federation, which consists of the European Covered Bond Council with partners.

• See EU residents set to get cheaper home loans for energy efficient houses

The scheme effectively creates a “pan-European mortgage financing system” in order to make energy efficiency measures more accessible and affordable for home-buyers.

For banks and investors, the mortgage could allow for loans that represent a lower risk on the balance sheet and could therefore qualify for a better capital treatment.

It could also ensure that banks are able to recognise “energy-efficient” assets in their risk-profiling, which would begin to help the market price-in the added value of energy-efficient real estate.

The project is the first time a group of major banks and mortgage lenders have sat down with businesses and organisations from the building and energy industries to address the concept of energy efficient mortgages.

Creating a private bank financing mechanism to encourage the energy efficient improvement of households would be a key means of helping the EU to meet its energy saving targets.

Alongside the EMF-ECBC, the project partners are the Ca’Foscari University of Venice, RICS, European Regional Network of Green Building Councils, E.ON, and SAFE Goethe University Frankfurt.

Over the coming months, they will begin a mapping exercise in relation to existing or past financing initiatives, energy efficiency indicators and valuation practices, with a view to identifying best practices with which to move the project forward. It will explore the link between energy efficiency and borrower’s reduced probability of default and the increase in value of energy efficient properties.

The experts will meet again in Brussels in February 2017, followed by a public event at which the next stage will be decided.

Europeans can also generate half their energy at home

Continuing the news from Europe on energy and buildings, it also emerged last week that half of EU citizens – including local communities, schools and hospitals – could be producing their own renewable electricity by 2050.

A study by Dutch consultancy firm CE Delft that evaluated the potential of decentralised power generation across the continent found that 264 million people in Europe could be producing their own renewable electricity by 2050 and meet 45 per cent of the EU’s energy demand, provided the right regulatory framework is put in place.

Sweden looks like leading the way, with an estimated 79 per cent of the population being able to produce their own energy in 2050.

Germany and other EU countries like the Netherlands already champion energy production by households, which can sell surplus electricity back to the grid at a guaranteed price.

“But in Spain, there is a ‘sun tax’ which makes it very expensive to install solar panels on your roofs or have energy storage at home. And there is only a handful of cooperatives,” said Sebastian Mang, climate change and energy officer at Greenpeace EU, which is among the organisations behind the study. “Yet across Germany, you see solar panels on the roofs and hundreds of energy cooperatives flourishing.”

The organisations are calling for the European Commission to enshrine so-called “energy citizens” at the centre of the EU’s Energy Union initiative.

David Thorpe is the author of:

• Best Practices and Case Studies for Industrial Energy Efficiency Improvement (with Oung, K. and Fawkes, S. UNEP, 2016)
• A London Conversation: Business Briefing on Green Bonds (The Fifth Estate, 2015)
• The One Planet Life (Introduction: Jane Davidson. Routledge, 2015)
• Earthscan Expert Guide to Energy Management in Buildings (Earthscan, 2013)
• Earthscan Expert Guide to Energy Management in Industry (Earthscan, 2013)
• Earthscan Expert Guide to Solar Technology (Earthscan, 2011)
• Earthscan Expert Guide to Sustainable Home Refurbishment

We need a definition of Nearly Zero Energy Buildings

A selection of low energy building types in Europe.

Most of the buildings around now will still be here in 2050, so the real challenge is not only making new buildings energy efficient but eco-renovating the old ones.

A new analysis of different pathways to achieving this goal has identified the most cost-effective ones, depending upon the existing housing stock. Although the study is focus on the different member states of the European Union, it could be applicable elsewhere that buildings and climate are similar, since the range of both within Europe is large.

The message is that while a strengthening of regulatory measures is essential, what is really crucial is a much stronger focus on compliance with regulations.

In most cases nobody ever bothers to check whether building regulations have been complied with, let alone conducts post-occupancy evaluations to see whether the expected performance is achieved.

The study uncovers a huge lack of data regarding renovation activities and the energy performance of buildings and calls for a building data observatory, in particular for monitoring the impact of policies.

It finds that the European Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPDB) has not performed as well as expected, even in the recast version.

The EPDB requires that from 2019 onwards all new buildings occupied and owned by public authorities in Europe are nearly Zero Energy Buildings (nZEBs) and that by the end of 2020 all new buildings must be nZEBs.

But because there is a wide variety in building culture (including ownership) and climate throughout Europe the Directive doesn't prescribe a uniform approach. Instead it asks member states to draw up specific national roadmaps that reflect their national, regional or local conditions.

Chart of European building stock by country and age:



It's necessary to deeply renovate the existing building stock to highly ambitious levels, in line with long-term energy policy and climate mitigation targets.

But the problem is that the Directive does not contain a clear definition of nZEB renovation.

This study, Laying down the pathways to nearly Zero-Energy Buildings, A toolkit for policy makers, undertaken by ENTRANZE (Policies to Enforce the Transition to nearly Zero-Energy Buildings in the EU-28), attempts to find policies to fill this gap.

According to the ENTRANZE model results for EU-28, the current policy framework could lead to savings of about 20%-23% of final energy demand from 2008-2030. In contrast, more ambitious policies, as developed during this project in extensive discussions with policy makers, would lead to savings of 29-31% in final energy demand.

However, this still does not represent the maximum of achievable effort and policy innovation. Almost half of the final energy demand for heating and hot water is covered by natural gas in 2008.

The research shows that an ambitious policy package could reduce natural gas demand in 2030 by almost 36-45%, potentially halving energy dependency on gas in the building stock by 2030.

The study says that the EPBD needs to make clear that cost-effectiveness must stand as the absolute minimum requirement for existing relations in building codes, and that current activities to improve high quality renovation, that would result in substantial savings, have to be significantly increased to have a lasting impact.

"While nZEB's energy performance level should be cost effective they still have to be more ambitious than cost optimal energy performance levels," the report says.

Chart of cost-optimal building eco-refurbishment in Europe:



It argues that European member states must be challenged to close the gap between the requirements of nZEB targets and the cost of the less stringent levels of current building codes. It should then gradually increase the requirements of the targets for existing buildings and for this a clear definition of "deep renovation" or nZEB is required.

There is also some confusion with standardisation and terminology.

Single family houses show the most potential for the use of renewable energy technologies is more effective in Mediterranean climates (characterised by higher solar radiation). A similar trend applies to office buildings, but with fewer differences between the South and North of Europe because of the higher electricity consumption for auxiliary systems and mechanical ventilation.

Net primary energy saving percentages for cost-optimal and nZEB targets are closer together in residential buildings than in office and school buildings. Multi-family dwellings show lower energy saving potential compared to single houses, due to geometric limits, such as the lower available roof area for solar systems.

Three tools

Part of the problem that the study attempts to tackle is the high initial cost of a deep renovation compared to the energy saving over 30 years. The study uses three tools to analyse this:

• The Data Tool: an in-depth description of the characteristics of buildings and related energy systems in the EU-28 and Serbia.
• The Cost Tool: ia powerful, flexible instrument to analyse the impact of a large number of renovation packages for specific building types in terms of costs and primary energy demand.
• The Online Scenario Tool: the results of alternative scenarios for the development of the building stock and its energy demand in the EU-28 (+ Serbia) up to 2030.

It concludes that while measures required to achieve nZEB-levels may not be cost-effective today, by 2020 they could be. this is especially true of using renewable energy systems for heating and cooling.

Perhaps its most valuable contribution is a country-by-country analysis and set of recommendations. For instance for France it says that:

"Despite five updates of building codes since 1974 for new construction and the fact that the last building code implemented (RT2012) is one of the most stringent in EU29, the specific energy consumption per m² and per heating degree days in buildings in France is still significantly higher than in other EU countries."

The study builds on an earlier one on the definition of nZEBs, concluded in 2011, which just goes to show how regrettably slow movement is on this topic.

This study found that:

"typically, low-energy buildings will encompass a high level of insulation, very energy efficient windows, a high level of air tightness and natural/ mechanical ventilation with very efficient heat recovery to reduceheating/cooling needs.

"Passive solar building design may boost their energy performance to very high levels by enabling the building to collect solar heat in winter and reject solar heat in summer and/or by integrating active solar technologies (such as solar collectors for domestic hot water and space heatingor PV-panels for electricity generation).

"In addition, other energy/resource saving measures may also be utilized, e.g. on-site wind turbines to produce electricity or rainwater collecting systems."

Yet, it found that in 2011, more than half of the Member States did not have an officially recognised definition for low or zero energy buildings.

Four years later the situation is not much better.

David Thorpe is the author of 

• Sustainable Home Refurbishment: The Earthscan Expert Guide to Retrofitting Homes for Efficiency, and
• Energy Management in Buildings: The Earthscan Expert Guide