(25 May 2015) – National governments are failing to plan properly for energy efficiency savings in their own buildings, according to new analysis by the Coalition for Energy Savings, a group of businesses, local authorities, trade unions and civil society organisations.
The EU’s Energy Efficiency Directive requires EU member states to renovate 3% of the total floor area of central government buildings every year. The rule applies to buildings with a floor area of more than 500 m2 and do not meet minimum performance requirements. Alternately, they must take different measures that lead to the same savings, such as deep renovation or changing the behaviour of staff.
Member states must notify the European Commission of which of the two approaches they take, and submit plans and inventories. The Coalition for Energy Savings has analysed the national reports. The coalition’s study shows that the plans are, on average, very poor. Out of the 11 countries (Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Romania, Slovenia and Spain) that chose the first option, only Latvia and Slovenia’s inventories were of good quality.
17 member states opted for the second option. Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy , Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Sweden and The United Kingdom. It was questionable if 13 of those countries’ plans would make the same savings as the 3% renovation.
Only Austria, Croatia, Italy and Slovakia had correctly calculated the savings, the report found. None of the alternative measures seemed to be part of a coherent programme for a systematic renovation of the central government building stock. (EurActiv)