Climate-Neutral Buildings: The Booming Market of Energy-Renovations
“Housing is absolutely essential to human flourishing. Without stable shelter, it falls apart.” — Mathew Desmond, Professor of Sociology at Princeton University
In a hurry? This outline is for you!
- The building sector is responsible for an extensive share of the EU’s emissions.
- To meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement, the sector’s energy supplies must be 100% renewable by 2040.
- Therefore, the annual renovation rate must triple.
- About 90% of the sector’s emissions are due to heating, and municipalities must integrate new heating systems quickly.
- While the required technology is available today, implementing systematic renovation plans across a heterogeneous policy environment is the main challenge.
Why are our buildings so climate-relevant? Facts and figures.
According to the Climate Action Network Europe (CAN), 36% of the energy-related emissions of the EU are still due to inefficient buildings and fossil fuel-bound heating technology. It’s due time to increase our efforts to make the sector climate-neutral, so let’s take a closer look at the challenges and strategies to modernize the way we live.
The building sector’s share of emissions varies between the EU’s countries. In Germany, for instance, only 15% of climate-relevant emissions stem from the housing sector. The majority of the sector’s emissions are due to heating; in Germany, that’s 90%.
However, all European countries face the same challenge of increasing annual renovation demands drastically. EU-wide, annual renovation rates must reach 3% to fulfill the Paris agreement. Currently, we’re at only 1%. Importantly, these figures refer to deep renovations, do-overs that change the house’s energy sources to renewables.
Thus, the two main steps in making houses climate-neutral are:
- Increasing their energy efficiency and
- shifting towards renewable energy sources.
Increasing energy efficiency & deep renovations
We can increase a building’s energy efficiency in various ways. That is, we may improve the insulation of walls, roofs, and windows. Further, we have to decrease the living space per capita. The urbanization trends across Europe will contribute immensely to this point. Third, we may promote energy-saving behavior through regulation and guidance.
However, the most significant benefit will come from alternative heating technologies. Instead of fossil fuel-powered boilers, rural areas could turn to individual heating solutions such as heat pumps or biomass as fuel. In urban areas, entire suburbs must be supplied through district heat networks (DHN).
Renewable heating sources & district heat networks
DHNs connect centralized heating sources with a district’s buildings through insulated water pipe systems. These systems are well suited to collect heat from locally available renewable sources and avoid costly energy transport over long distances.
According to Accenture, DHNs could cut the Co2 emissions related to heating by 50% to 70%. Key technologies feeding into the grid are, among others:
- Heat pumps utilizing otherwise lost excess heat from local industries or the district itself and (re)feed into the DHN. By minimizing heat loss, heat pumps may account for roughly 50% of a DHN’s heat sources, according to the International Energy Agency.
- Solar thermal collectors, absorbing the heat of sunlight, may also feed into the district grid.
- In suitable areas, geothermal heating may also play a role, pumping warm water from about 500 meters to the surface and refeeding it into the cycle once it’s cooled down.
Construction & Green Architecture
While existing buildings need a do-over, new buildings must be built with a strict sustainability focus. That is, the Federation of German Industries (BDI) says all new buildings should rely entirely on climate-neutral heating from 2025 at the latest.
Also, construction processes must be modernized. Green Architecture, commonly misused as a buzzword associated with urban gardening, provides the guidelines for low-emission construction. These guidelines need enforcement through policies and public funding.
Read next: Green Architecture: How Can Sustainable Urban Planning Make Cities More Livable?
The takeaway
The demand for housing renovations will drastically increase. All the technology we need to make our living spaces climate-neutral is available today, and whether the housing sector reaches urgent climate goals depends solely on policymakers.
Incentivizing large-scale renovation strategies and the systematic integration of heat networks across municipalities is essential. Moreover, policymakers must specify comprehensive renovation strategies and establish contracts with construction businesses well in advance, motivating the key companies to meet the increasing demand with increased capacities.
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Finn Faust, Webdesign & Research at QLab Think Tank GmbH
