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Buildings Renovation: city-wide comprehensive data management tools to transform each building

September 21, 2022 by Molly Rettig

In the U.S. the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have created a free-to-use (and develop) online data management tool – called SEED - that allows whole cities to collect details on thousands of buildings and use them to assess energy wastage at the single building level. Molly Rettig at NREL explains that hundreds of data points can be collected for each building. The tools, along with … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Buildings, Energy Tagged With: buildings, Cities, data, Energy, renovation, retrofit, SanFrancisco, US, Washington

Buildings Renovation: if Europe had started a decade ago it wouldn’t have a Russian oil & gas problem

April 8, 2022 by Andreas RĂĽdinger

It’s a message we are starting to see a lot. If ambitious climate policies struggling to be implemented today had been launched a decade ago, Europe wouldn’t have a Russian oil and gas problem. Andreas RĂĽdinger at IDDRI looks at buildings renovations in France. Two missed targets, proposed in 2008, are a 38% reduction in energy consumption in existing buildings by 2020, and 400,000 “major” renovations annually. If they had been met, natural gas … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Buildings, Energy Tagged With: boilers, buildings, efficiency, electricity, EU, Europe, France, gas, insulation, oil, renovation, Russia, Ukraine

Why sustainable Buildings are critical for a resilient, healthier society

March 25, 2022 by Velux

Europe and its Member States are committing large sums to buildings renovations. The policy emphasis has been on insulation, energy savings and emissions reduction. The latest Healthy Homes Barometer 2022 by Velux draws attention to the health benefits of renovations that target damp, lack of daylight, excess noise or cold, and other indoor climate hazards. To get an idea of the scale of the problem, 34 million Europeans are unable to keep their … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Buildings, Energy Tagged With: buildings, damp, daylight, EU, health, healthcare, heating, offices, productivity, renovation, Velux, WHO

If Buildings Renovation fails, the EU ETS pricing mechanism must change

March 3, 2022 by Sebastian Osorio, Michael Pahle and Oliver Ruhnau

If the EU “Renovation Wave” for buildings fails, the massive ramp up of clean electrification required to compensate will come into direct conflict with EU ETS pricing formulas, say Sebastian Osorio and Michael Pahle at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Oliver Ruhnau at the Hertie School in Berlin. If the cap in the original ETS is too tight relative to the Effort Sharing Regulation (ESR) targets, its carbon prices may rise … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Buildings, Energy Tagged With: boilers, BRTETS, buildings, CarbonPricing, decentralised, district, electrification, ESR, EUETS, heating, renovation

Gas Crunch: time to factor in volatility and externalities to reveal its true costs

January 21, 2022 by Dolf Gielen, Michael Taylor and Barbara Jinks

The current gas price shock (and any future ones) raises the question: if we had invested more in renewables, efficiency, buildings renovation, and green gases, would we be actually saving money instead of losing it? Looking at the EU, Dolf Gielen, Michael Taylor and Barbara Jinks at IRENA urge governments to do something they’ve not done before and factor in the negative impacts of volatile fossil fuel prices. Moreover, they should calculate the … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Energy, Oil, Gas & Coal Tagged With: biogas, biomethane, buildings, coal, efficiency, Environment, externalities, gas, health, hydrogen, prices, renewables, renovation, volatility

Energy-efficient and affordable housing will increase public support for the Green Deal

September 21, 2021 by Clare Taylor

Energy poverty – the inability to afford basic household energy needs – affects up to one-third of U.S and European households. The energy transition can be part of the solution, says Clare Taylor. Targeted energy-efficient retrofits and newbuilds for low-income households will cut bills and improve living conditions. This will not only cut emissions, but get the beneficiaries behind wider climate change policies like the Green Deals in Europe … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Buildings, Energy Tagged With: buildings, CEE, CIS, efficiency, Energiesprong, France, GreenDeal, housing, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Netherlands, renovation, retrofits, UK, US

Central and Eastern Europe’s buildings renovation plans fall far short of 55% emissions cuts

July 16, 2021 by Christophe Jost

There are big decarbonisation gains to be had in a renovation wave in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) precisely because their building stock is very energy-inefficient, explains Christophe Jost at CEE Bankwatch. But Bankwatch's report on eight national plans - Bulgaria, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, Romania and Slovakia – reveals weaknesses in scale, funding, strategy and policy. Many are planning to comply with only the former 40% … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Buildings, Energy Tagged With: buildings, Bulgaria, CEE, Czechia, efficiency, Estonia, EU, FitFor55, funding, heating, Hungary, Latvia, Poland, renovation, Romania, Slovakia

Buildings Retrofits: inaccurate efficiency ratings are going to waste budget

July 6, 2021 by Freya Wise

Buildings renovations are going to be expensive, and complicated to roll out. Accurately predicting how much energy a building actually wastes will make that process easier and cheaper. EPC ratings are used to categorise the energy efficiency of homes. But Freya Wise at The Open University quotes research in Europe, along with her own investigations in the UK, to show that a lot of older buildings waste less energy than the standard estimates are … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Buildings, Energy Tagged With: buildings, efficiency, EPC, EU, insulation, renovation, retrofits, UK

Why expensive Buildings Renovations? By the time they’re done the grid will be emissions-free

April 30, 2021 by Maximilian Auffhammer

The big budgets being talked about for the transition require us to decide how much to spend, and on what. Maximilian Auffhammer at the Energy Institute at Haas explains why he thinks a lot of the money being earmarked for buildings renovations would be better spent elsewhere. By the time the renovation wave has successfully “reached the shoreline” in the next few decades buildings will be powered overwhelmingly by clean grids (that’s the plan, … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Buildings, Energy Tagged With: buildings, emissions, grids, HVAC, JustTransition, renovation, retrofits

How to ramp up Green Mortgages for climate-friendly house improvements

April 29, 2021 by Greg Hopkins

Green mortgages are used to finance climate-friendly house improvements. In the U.S. they already exist, but need to be made far more accessible and marketed widely. Greg Hopkins at RMI cites their report “Build Back Better Homes: How to Unlock America’s Single-Family Green Mortgage Market” to explain that the financial markets are looking increasingly favourably at lending that is certified as ESG (environmental, social, and governance). … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Buildings, Energy Tagged With: Biden, buildings, ESG, HVAC, insulation, investment, lending, mortgages, renovation, US

Buildings Renovation in Germany: success story or potential failure?

January 25, 2021 by Andreas RĂĽdinger

The German Federal Association of Housing and Real Estate Companies (GdW) has claimed that money and effort spent on the nation’s buildings renovations have not worked. But Andreas RĂĽdinger at IDDRI has looked into the evidence and concluded that the opposite is the case. CO2 emissions from the residential sector in 2018 were 37% lower than in 1990. Though final energy consumption was broadly stable, that’s because efficiency gains were offset by … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Buildings, Energy Tagged With: buildings, efficiency, emissions, France, Germany, heating, insulation, renovation, residential, tenants

Europe’s Deep Buildings Renovations need to quadruple

October 27, 2020 by Thibaud VoĂŻta

The European Green Deal must grasp the opportunity to kick-start buildings renovations, says Thibaud VoĂŻta at the IFRI Center for Energy & Climate, summarising his report “The Renovation Wave: A Make or Break for the European Green Deal”. A lot of European buildings are old, and progress is slow. Stiffer regulations have helped, and household energy efficiency has risen by 30% since 2000. But the number of deep building renovations completed … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Buildings, Energy Tagged With: buildings, EU, GreenDeal, jobs, regulations, renovation, skills

Why savings from the 2009 Buildings Refits stimuli were poor. Let’s do better this time

June 4, 2020 by Meredith Fowlie

“Shovel ready” buildings renovations and refits can play an important part in a nation’s economic recovery programme. It gets money straight into the pockets of manual workers doing the refits, across the whole country, cuts the energy bills of all (both low and high income households), and accelerates efficiency gains for meeting climate targets. But first we need to learn lessons from the U.S. renovation stimuli of 2009, says Meredith Fowlie at … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Buildings, Energy Tagged With: buildings, Covid, efficiency, jobs, refits, renovation, stimuli, training, weatherization

No Energiewende without Wärmewende: making Germany’s Heating emissions climate neutral (…nearly)

February 3, 2020 by Freja Eriksen

In Germany, space and water heating in buildings accounts for almost a third of total final energy consumption. Because over 90% of its 22m buildings are fuelled by oil and gas, that makes the sector emissions very intensive. The government’s ambition is to have a "nearly climate neutral building stock" by 2050. But although those emissions have fallen by 44% since 1990, progress has largely stagnated since 2011. Freja Eriksen at Clean Energy … [Read more...]

Filed Under: Buildings, Energy, HVAC, Policies Tagged With: biomass, buildings, DistrictHeating, gas, GreenDeal, heating, HeatPumps, HVAC, oil, power2gas, power2heat, power2liquid, renovation, SmartBuildings, solar

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      Recent Posts

      Wind (and Solar) need their own Financial Transmission Rights to hedge their unique congestion risks

      The U.S. should support the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM)

      Utah: 140MW Geothermal bid can beat the cost and performance of the proposed Nuclear SMR

      Make Hydrogen in developing nations: share prosperity while meeting our climate goals

      Smart Glasses: experts can monitor and advise on power plant inspections anywhere in the world

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