Accelerating energy renovation investments in buildings

This report provides a country-by-country overview of the most important public schemes identified across the EU and investigates new private financial products in place to stimulate more energy efficiency investments in residential, commercial and public buildings. Good practices are identified based on the criteria of impact, cost effectiveness, ambition level of energy efficiency upgrades, funding sustainability/continuity, scalability and outreach to hard-to-reach groups.

 

The research has shown that EU Member States currently deploy various public support instruments, each tailored to address specific barriers, segments and recipient groups within the sector. These are primarily in the form of grants/subsidies, followed by soft loans and tax incentives which target residential, commercial and public buildings.

 

While private investments are not included in our findings, achieving the goals set out by the Paris agreement and the EU would require significantly higher levels of funding (IEA, 2017). A shift towards more sustainable public financing means (e.g. from grants to guarantees) which can leverage higher levels of private funds would also be needed to meet the investment scalability needs, together with limiting access to grants to vulnerable or difficult-to-access groups and exploring new, innovative mechanisms.