Energy efficiency policy and action for multi-family residential building renovation in Central and Eastern Europe: the tale of four cities

Panel: 1. Foundations of future energy policy

This is a peer-reviewed paper.

Authors:
Catalina Turcu, Bartlett School of Planning, University College London, United Kingdom
Agneta Persson, WSP Group, Sweden

Abstract

The current energy-efficiency agenda is a ‘no-regret option’ for Europe, addressed by both short-term and long-term EU policy. It is one of the three Horizon 2020 research challenges, but also an area of growing interest within decision-making bodies and lobby networks such as the Covenant of Mayors, Energy Cities or Climate Alliance. At the same time, Europe’s built environment is responsible for 40% of EU’s final energy demand and so, seen as a primary area of action for energy-efficiency retrofit. Current European retrofit trends, however, are not encouraging: only 1.2% of the existing built stock is renovated every year, compared to a 2-3% yearly rate needed to meet our 80% by 2050 target. Moreover, some countries are in a better position than others, with countries such as Germany, Sweden and Denmark at the forefront of the energy-efficiency agenda, while countries from the former Eastern European block lagging well behind.

Proportional to its size and population, Eastern Europe holds the biggest potential for energy-efficiency in Europe. However, energy-efficiency in buildings action has only been modest to date. Explanations for this concern four types of factors: economic (i.e. restructuring, access to finance, payback time, opportunity costs, asymmetry of information, pricing distortions), technological (i.e. product availability, installation and use), social (i.e. behavior, awareness and information, custom and habit), and, to a certain extent, institutional (i.e. regulatory and planning issues, structural, multiple stakeholders). Recent literature also suggests that variations across Eastern European countries are significant, in terms of both energy-efficiency framing but also outcomes: some countries strive towards more concerted, strategic planning of overall retrofit action, while others roll out building retrofit in a very unplanned, decentralized and piece-meal fashion. This paper argues that it is important to understand these variations and looks at four countries (Romania, Hungary, Estonia and Latvia) and their capital cities (Bucharest, Budapest, Riga and Tallinn).