As EU funds flow into improving the energy efficiency of homes, the failure to support deep renovations risks locking entire neighbourhoods into homes that remain expensive to heat and cool for decades. So why isn’t EU funding delivering on its promise?
Léa Marchal
Production: By Europod, in co-production with Sphera Network.
EUobserver is proud to have an editorial partnership with Europod to co-publish the podcast series “Briefed” hosted by Léa Marchal. The podcast is available on all major platforms.
Find the full transcript below:
The European Union is investing tens of billions of euros to make our homes more energy efficient. Yet, according to a new report, much of that money is delivering only limited results.
So why isn’t EU funding having the impact it was supposed to?
Hi, I’m Léa, and this is Briefed, your daily European podcast.
Since the Covid-19 crisis, the European Union has rolled out a massive recovery plan to support the economies of its member states, this is called the recovery and resilience facility, or RRF.
Under the rules of the programme, at least 37 percent of the funding must be spent on climate and energy objectives. Energy-efficient building renovations are a key part of that effort.
But according to a report published on 7 July by the European Court of Auditors, the RRF money is far from being used in the most effective way — especially when it comes to building renovations.
The main problem is that member states mostly fund the simplest renovation projects:
Replacing windows. Installing solar panels. Upgrading heating systems.
By contrast, deep renovations — such as fully insulating a building, which can cut energy consumption by more than 60 percent — receive far less support.
So how did we end up here?
The problem is that projects receiving EU recovery funding are almost never selected based on the amount of energy they are actually expected to save.
In several countries visited by the auditors, there was no system in place to rank projects according to their potential energy savings.
Out of the 111 renovation schemes examined by the Court, only three included a specific energy-saving target.
Instead, governments mainly measure the number of homes renovated or the number of square metres refurbished.
Very few actually measure the energy savings achieved.
The report also criticises the cost of some renovation programmes.
The most striking example is Italy’s Superbonus scheme, which doesn’t just reimburse 100 perce of the costs, but 110 percent thanks to Italian state support. And this created a surge in demand.
According to the auditors, every unit of energy saved under the Italian programme ended up costing nearly four times more than originally expected.
For the European Court of Auditors, this approach is ultimately counterproductive.
First, because these small-scale renovations can actually make deeper renovations more difficult and more expensive a few years later.
And second, because they simply aren’t enough to decarbonise Europe’s building stock over the long term.
These findings come at a crucial moment.
The European Commission wants to continue funding energy-efficient building renovations in the EU’s next long-term budget, covering the period from 2028 to 2034.
Residential buildings account for around a quarter of Europe’s total energy consumption. Yet today, nearly three-quarters of European buildings remain poorly insulated.
Without a massive wave of building renovations, the European Union will not be able to meet its climate targets.
So if it wants to succeed, it will need to target funding more effectively, measure the energy savings that projects actually deliver, and make sure every euro invested creates a real impact.
That’s all for this episode on how the EU funds energy-efficient building renovations.
