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Making cities more energy efficient
Article Building & Housing
Promoting action at neighbourhood level to make cities more energy efficient.
Germany’s building stock consists of some 18 million residential and 1.7 million non-residential buildings (municipal, social and commercial in nature).
Heating, hot water and lighting in publicly and privately owned buildings in Germany account for 40% of all energy consumed and nearly 30% of all CO2 emissions nationwide; there is enormous potential for savings in this area.
The problem: 75% of all buildings were built before the 1978 ordinance on thermal insulation went into effect. In many cases they are unrenovated, which means their energy efficiency is extremely poor. This can lead to heating and energy costs amounting to almost as much as rent.
We don’t have to look far to see that savings must and can be made: proper renovation and modern building technology can reduce energy consumption by up to 80%. It is important to tap this potential. We can often make the most of synergy effects by renovating and improving the climate impact of not just one building, but a whole neighbourhood.
KfW banking group programme "Energy-Efficient Urban Redevelopment"
For this reason, it is increasingly important that efforts to improve energy efficiency in cities should operate at the neighbourhood level. The KfW banking group programme "Energy-Efficient Urban Redevelopment" makes this possible.
The programme aims to initiate comprehensive measures in neighbourhoods to foster climate change mitigation and adaptation to climate change. It creates more opportunities to use renewable energy sources in city-centre neighbourhoods of older buildings, for example, and involves other actors in the renovation process. Funding of around €70 million from the energy and climate fund is planned for 2020 for the purpose of making cities more energy efficient.
Between the programme launch in late 2011 and the end of 2019, the KfW banking group had already approved more than 970 requests for funding loans amounting to more than €690 million for the neighbourhood energy provision sub-programme (KfW programme 201/202). More than 1,620 individual measures amounting to around €87 million have been funded in the planning and renovation management sub-programme (KfW 432).
The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy is responsible for other KfW banking group funding programmes (with the exception of Energy-Efficient Urban Redevelopment). You can find detailed information on the different funding options on the websites of the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and the KfW banking group.
