With a new draft proposal for revising the EPBD coming soon, it is timely that the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre has published Progress of the Member States in implementing the Energy Performance of Building Directive.
Overall, the EPBD policy framework laid down the foundation for: i) setting cost-optimal minimum energy performance standards in new buildings and existing buildings under major renovation; ii) ensuring that prospective buyers or renters are well informed through Energy Performance Certificates and thereby encouraged to choose higher than minimum standards in their decision making processes; iii) speeding up the rate at which investors engage in energy efficiency projects through national long-term renovation strategies and finance mechanisms. In accordance with the policy assessment of 2017 it is expected that the EPBD is likely to deliver the expected impacts by 2020, with 48.9 Mtoe additional final energy savings and a reduction of 63 Mt of CO2.However, the new Climate agenda set higher ambition targets and together with the Covid-19 crisis, the scenario has changed consistently and the next decade will be very challenging. The energy renovation of buildings can be a pillar of both the European decarbonisation process and the economic recovery after the pandemic. This report provides a snapshot of the EPBD implementation progresses by Member States over the last years. In particular, the focus is mainly on: cost-optimal calculations to set minimum energy performance requirements, Energy Performance Certificates (EPC), Nearly Zero-Energy Buildings (NZEB), financial incentives and market barriers, Long-term Renovation Strategies (LTRS). In order to contextualise the European scenario, some general trends are presented and discussed in the introduction.
The report is available here.
Energy in Demand - Sustainable Energy - Rod Janssen 