Innovative Market Framework to Enable Deep Renovation of Existing Buildings in IEA Countries

This paper presents the IEA’s recent research into existing energy efficiency financing programmes. The evaluation shows that most are designed to address each barrier individually with little or no consideration for the holistic approach needed to reduce the energy consumption of the buildings sector. It also shows that two-thirds of the incentives provided in IEA countries between 2011 and 2012 do not relate to measurable energy savings. And when tied to measurable savings, incentives usually target the implementation of solutions that are “low hanging fruit” such as the replacement of individual pieces of equipment or components. This problem is compounded when whole building and prescriptive programmes co-exist and are in competition for limited funding sources. As a consequence, savings potentials are locked for decades and the efficiency gap increases. It is time to refocus; reducing the energy consumed by the buildings sector requires ambitious policies to create a sustainable market for low-energy buildings. This paper presents an innovative market framework to enable deep renovation of the existing buildings stock in the IEA countries and beyond. The proposal considers the overall buildings stock and the objective already announced by several countries in their energy efficiency action plans to reach 80% reduction of the sector’s energy consumption by 2050. The framework bundles successful building energy efficiency financing programmes and lessons learned from existing schemes.