No tightening of building efficiency standards planned in Germany

The new draft law on the energy efficiency of  buildings, proposed by Germany’s interior (BMI) and economy and energy (BMWi) ministries, does not stipulate tighter energy standards for new buildings, Susanne Ehlerding writes for the Tagesspiegel. Under the so-called Building Energy Law, new buildings will only have to meet an efficiency standard of 0.75 percent primary energy consumption of a reference building, the standard already in place under Germany’s energy saving ordinance, and not the proposed and more rigorous standard of 0.55 percent, which now only applies if house builders want to be eligible for financial support from the state’s development bank KfW. The government coalition of the conservative CDU-CSU alliance and the Social Democrats (SPD) thereby “not only ignores the ongoing climate crisis but also the state of technology,” said the Green Party’s Julia Verlinden. The draft law also scraps a provision from the coalition treaty that would make the 0.55 percent standard binding for public buildings, and contains an “innovation clause” that would make it possible to offset the emissions of older, less efficient buildings with those of modern ones in city districts if refurbishment is deemed to be too costly, the article says.

Read the article in German here.

For background on the role of efficiency in the Energiewende, read the dossier Taming the appetite for energy.