Germany must catch up with other EU countries and collect building efficiency data - report
Clean Energy Wire
Germany must systematically collect building efficiency data like all other EU countries, which would boost its lagging efforts to make its housing stock climate-neutral, according to the Buildings Performance Institute Europe (BPIE), an independent think tank. “Building data is central to monitoring the energy transition and achieving climate targets. However, Germany is currently poorly equipped when it comes to building data,” BPIE said, adding that Germany is the only country in Europe without a database for energy performance certificate data.
Rapidly setting up a corresponding database on buildings is essential in Germany because “policymakers, as well as the finance and real estate sectors, urgently need this data to monitor the energy transition, fulfill reporting and renovation obligations, and ultimately contribute to achieving the climate goals for the building stock,” the BPIE said. As a laggard, Germany can draw from European neighbours’ experiences of setting up such a database, argued the institute, which published a report on lessons from other countries, including recommendations for national implementation.
BPIE said Germany should form a building data task force involving all relevant stakeholders to create a central database by May 2026. “Having better access to property data helps building owners modernise their properties’ energy performance and secure their value,” BPIE said.
Four in five houses in Germany are still heated with oil and gas. Around 15 percent of the country’s total CO2 emissions come from heating buildings, meaning the vast majority of the country's 40 million homes must switch to climate-neutral heating technology – such as heat pumps – if it is to reach its 2045 net-zero emissions target. But a buildings energy law designed to promote this transition has been the subject of fierce debate due to the high cost of installing heat pumps. After months of wrangling, the coalition government reached a compromise in 2023, passing a less ambitious law.
