A look back at the Workshop Enabling the Renovation Wave
On May the 23rd, as partner of MonitorEE project, we have participated to the Workshop Enabling the Renovation, which took place in Vienna and was organised by the Policy Learning Platform.
The event hosted partners of different European projects: DETOCS, EXPRESS, Green4HEAT, JUSTGREEN, MonitorEE, NEBA, and ZEROCO2.
Europe has raised its ambitions for reducing carbon emissions and energy consumption. This includes the revised Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) which mandates energy performance certificates, sets requirements for nearly-zero energy buildings, and recommends the establishment of one-stop-shops for supporting renovations. It also obliges Member States to develop national long-term renovation strategies to decarbonise the building stock by 2050, as well as financial mechanisms to support renovation efforts. This was followed by the Renovation Wave Strategy, aiming to double the annual energy renovation rate of buildings by 2030. It focuses on three key areas: tackling energy poverty and worst-performing buildings, public buildings and social infrastructure, and decarbonizing heating and cooling, which remains a significant challenge in comparison to the power sector. To reach its objectives, Europe must increase the renovation rate and speed up the transition.
Opportunity and objectives
The workshop aimed at identifying common issues in energy renovation and suggesting solutions: innovations, good practices, methodologies, from different European regions, to face this challenge.
As impediments to energy renovation, we mentioned:
- Bureaucracy and planning process complexity;
- Economic and financial uncertainty;
- Financial constraints (lack of subsidies, barriers to access loans;
- The low evolution towards renewable energy.
The workshop focused on two effective topics, to go over energy renovation complexity: one-stop shops for energy renovation and replicable models for large scale renovation. It aimed at presenting local initiatives and finding means to make them more efficient.
Indeed, one-stop-shops are decisive actors to organise the transition, dealing with co-owners, professional networks and the public authority. Financed by public funds and representing the public interest, they give free technical or social advice, accompany projects, help in the decision-making process and in the access to funding.
Moreover, to speed up the renovation rate and increase the number of renovated buildings the public authority should concentrate on replicable renovation models or technical solutions for similar types of buildings to achieve scale. This approach requires the identification of buildings potentials from territorial dataset.
Some good practices to for large scale renovation
In Germany, they have developed a replicable model for large scale renovation strategy. It aims at transforming identical Soviet-era buildings from the 70’s into climate neutral buildings, using PV panels, glazing of balconies, new ventilation systems and heat recovery from waste water. In eastern Germany, they are 18 000 buildings and in the specific State of Thuringia, 6 000 buildings. So far, from 2022 to 2024, they have renovated 144 residential units for approximatively 20 000€ per unit.
The City of Vienna presented its strategy to phase out gas in two times. The first phase, from 2023 to 2025, involves the implementation of a new framework, market simulations, pilot implementations and public relations activities. The second phase, from 2026 to 2040, involves a large-scale rollout, observation and adaptation of processes if necessary. In Vienna, 60% of heating systems are using fossil fuels energy and 83% are decentralised gas systems. Vienne’s strategy is based on the development and the expansion of the heating network, especially in densely built-up city or for buildings that are particularly inefficient. The heating network allows to set energy transition based on renewable energy which is indeed fuelled with the use of waste heat and renewable resources. Where no heating district is available, Vienna plans to install heat pump solutions.
In Turin, Italy, Homes4All, aims at renovating abandoned and run-down buildings to a high quality and at an affordable price. Their project also tackles social issues and encourages to create open, green and common spaces or multigenerational housings.
The City of Paris aims at renovating the whole buildings stock, that is to say 43 000 condominiums, 1,2 million flats, by 2050. To achieve its goal, Paris has developed EnerSIG, a map application that provides data on energy consumption and renewable energy potential in respect of land plots. This tool is based on data crossing from different sources.