Green turn, work in 2 million homes by 2035 for families: costs of up to 80 thousand euros

Buildings account for 40% of EU energy consumption, over half of gas consumption (especially heating and hot water) and 35% of greenhouse gas emissions. With the European directive on Green Homes, Brussels has set itself the ambitious goal of decarbonising them by 2050. Plan stakes first on new buildings and boilers, then on the entire building stock. Constraints softened compared to the premises, which captures Italy intent on sobering up from the Superbonus hangover and with the underlying question: where to find the money for the new boost in efficiency? Question to be answered within two years: time given to the Capitals to present the National Plan with the stages for the renovations.

What does the directive provide

Debated since 2021, it has changed several times. However, Confeditore considers the final text “unacceptable”: it started by calling for a stop to the sale of non-efficient houses, to move on from tight stages of redevelopment on the basis of harmonized energy classes and end up with a solution that entrusts the reduction of average consumption to the States energy of the building stock. The trajectory imposes a -16% on residential buildings, on the 2020 level, by 2030 and then -20/22% by 2035.

The 16% of public or non-residential buildings with the worst performance will have to be made more efficient by 2030, rising to 26% in 2033. As early as 2028, new public residential buildings will have to be zero-emission, all the others from 2030. Exemptions are foreseen for historic buildings, places of worship, apartments under 50 square meters or second homes. The stop for gas boilers will start in 2040, but from next year they will no longer have subsidies reserved for hybrid systems only. Between 2026 and 2030 – depending on the surface area – obligations will be triggered on new buildings to be “solar-ready”, i.e. equipped with solar panels.

An old heritage

Italian houses are on average older than other European countries: 84.5% are dated before 1990, worse than Germany (75.3%), France (65.6%) and Spain (59.4%). ). And the renewal rate is historically low. According to the Smart Building Community of The European House – Ambrosetti, before the Superbonus (2014-2018) we stopped at 0.85% per year, compared to 1.7% in France and Germany. The latest Enea, I-Com and Fiaip report on the real estate market certifies the inequality of energy performance: in the suburbs the properties sold are 83% in the lower classes, in the prestigious areas the efficient ones reach 45%.

Superbonus rhythm

The national plans must take into account that at least 55% of the energy consumption reduction objective will be achieved by renovating the 43% of the residential buildings with the worst performance.

In Italy it means focusing on 5 million buildings. When reporting the results, we will be able to make use of the savings achieved after 2020 and therefore also with the Superbonus: 460 thousand buildings renovated by 2023, which for ANCE are already worth 5 percentage points of the objective. To reach -20/22% of consumption by 2035 we will have to reach 1.9 million buildings: according to the builders we should maintain the “rhythm of renovations done with the Superbonus”. Hence the question from Giorgetti, known for his 110% stomach ache: who pays?

The interventions

Apartment owners are not subject to direct requirements from EU regulations. In the individual real estate units we can think about fixtures and heating systems. But the bulk of the work will have to concern the building cladding and heat pumps. According to Cresme, to increase the efficiency of a 120 square meter house from the seventies by two classes, you need from 19 thousand euros for a biomass winter air conditioning system to 86 thousand for cladding and windows. An eight-storey condominium apartment of the same size requires 23 thousand euros for windows and heat pump or 48 thousand for insulation, condensing boiler and windows. Similar results can be achieved with a new renewable thermal power plant with a pro-rata cost of 19 thousand euros. A leap of two classes, calculates the Ecco think tank, allows for savings on the bill of 1,067 euros per year.

The funds

The sore point: the European Commission estimates that 275 billion euros of annual investments will be needed for the energy transition by 2030, 152 more than current resources. The EU calls for support for the weakest families, including with one-stop shops for advice. But there are no additional figures to the already known Social Climate Fund, Recovery Fund and Regional Development Funds.