Eficiência Energética em Edifícios

Well, the energy savings potential remain large within the EU. We’ll be highlighting three sectors today, being transport, building, information and communication technology, as well as highlighting some information about industry. The first sector being transport, transport is responsible of consuming around 30% of the EU’s energy mix. The second sector we are mentioning today is buildings. We’ll be dividing it in two subsectors, the first one being public buildings. Public buildings are responsible of an estimated 2% consumption of the EU’s energy, whereas the household buildings are responsible of around one quarter of EU’s energy consumption. Information and communication technology.

Same data is given worldwide, so it’s a sector that is responsible of around 5 to 9% electricity consumption worldwide and it was estimated to consume around 2.3% just within the EU. In the industry sector a lot of efforts, generalizing, have been taking place for energy efficiency improvements, specific subsectors will be definitely taken care in the coming years. As mentioned before, the building sector is the largest consumer of energy within the Union, so let’s zoom in in this specific sector. Buildings consume around 40% of the EU’s total energy consumed and what does it mean in terms of emissions?

It’s around 36% of the Union’s GHG emissions just taking into account the operations of the buildings, not the embodied carbon, meaning the carbon, the emissions that come from the construction of those buildings. Also around 35% of the EU’s buildings are older than 50 years. What does it mean? That around 75% of the building stock within the Union is inefficient.

Conclusion: there is need for a big wave of renovation of those buildings but only 1% is renovated on a yearly basis within the European Union. We can then agree that the building sector is key for achieving the EU’s energy and environmental goals, so let’s go through the main initiatives and directives released by the European Union, the first being the EPBD, the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive, which was first released in 2010. It was followed by the first Energy Efficiency Directive in 2012. Both were respectively amended in 2018 and 2019 under the “Clean Energy for All Europeans” package and then finally followed by the Renovation Wave under the EU Green Deal released in 2020.

Let’s deep dive in the already standing building stock within the EU. What about the 75% inefficient standing buildings? How can we decarbonise them by 2050? So, here we are giving some measures to improve those buildings. As already mentioned, renovation is very much needed and only 1% on yearly basis is not enough. So, there is a need for renovation strategies to accelerate them. Minimum energy performance requirements for those buildings, as well as aiming at consuming the highest amount of renewable energy during the operations of the building, so nearly zero-energy buildings. Energy performance certificates, EPCs, are also important making sure that we have the most efficient buildings’ envelope.

EV readiness infrastructure as well as smart readiness of buildings, followed by building automation and control systems, making sure that energy savings are first automatized as well as informed. Health and well-being for users and national financial measures to improve the energy efficiency of buildings. All these measures together will improve the energy efficiency of the already standing buildings within the EU and achieve the decarbonisation of those buildings by 2050. So, here goes the three main takeaways regarding energy efficiency, the first one being that energy efficiency is crucial for a region like the EU where most of its fuels are imported. So, moderating the demand is an easy win for reducing the overall energy consumed.

Second is that energy efficiency is an unchallenging way of saving consumers’ money, as well as reducing the GHG emissions during the operations of the buildings. Finally, energy efficiency in buildings is crucial and prioritised by the EU, as seen in the EU Green Deal where energy efficiency targets have been upgraded, as well as we find the Renovation Wave Strategy as one key action for the Union.