Presentation of the long-term building renovation strategy: attention will be paid not only to residents of apartment buildings, but also to residents of their own houses

Conference “Perspectives of the Housing Sector. Increasing the energy efficiency of buildings ”presented the Long-term Building Renovation Strategy currently being prepared, which provides the main directions for increasing the energy efficiency of the Lithuanian housing and non-residential buildings sector. The European Union has set a target for its members of 2050 at the latest. most buildings have a lower contribution to climate change and should consume almost no energy.

According to the Deputy Minister of Environmental Protection, Marius Narmontas, people often wonder how home renovation is related to climate change. “We use a lot of energy to heat our buildings and we spend a lot of money. Along with energy, we often emit gases that cause climate change. Across the whole Lithuanian landscape around 6 percent. Emissions come from the construction sector,” he says M. Narmontas: According to him, the more efficient the buildings, the smaller the CO2 footprint and the more damaging we will be to the environment.

The EU has a directive that stipulates that by 2055, all countries must have a neutral economy, an economy that does not use fossil fuels. According to the deputy minister, the renovation of buildings contributes to this. It emphasizes that biofuels, which make us so happy, are not the only way out.

The deputy minister says that to achieve the set goal, most buildings by 2050 at the latest. Should it become carbon neutral and cost-effectively convert to near zero energy, that is, low energy buildings, we will have to renovate more buildings. “They are currently renovating around 400 apartment buildings per year, so to renovate all the buildings by 2050, we will renovate 500 buildings per year from the beginning, until last year we will need to renovate 1,500 apartment buildings per year. In this way, we increase our ambition by 3 times ”, says M. Narmontas, emphasizing that he hopes that EU funds will be allocated for this.

What awaits the population?

And what changes does the new long-term strategy foresee for the population? How Delphi says Valius Serbenta, director of the Housing Energy Saving Agency, the strategy targets all buildings and different population groups. “The developers of the strategy mentioned that the largest number of building units are individual homeowners. Some take care of it, change the gas and wood boilers for heat pumps, etc. For them, nothing changes at this stage, but new subsidy opportunities arise in support of the climate change program, ”says V. Serbenta.

According to him, the developers of the strategy propose to apply mandatory requirements to buildings that use energy very inefficiently or continue to use gas for home heating. However, the deputy minister emphasizes that the population will not face fines, but the EU has anticipated in the future that the most polluted buildings may be taxed.

We are not expecting major changes in the housing population: according to V. Serbenta, the provisions of the strategy are already being implemented in practice. “Currently, around 2,700 apartment buildings have been renovated during the multi-apartment renovation program for at least the last 7 years. The minimum requirement for these projects is that they must reach at least energy efficiency class C. I would like to point out that at least a quarter of the buildings, almost 25%, also reach class B ”, says V. Serbenta. According to him, a large part of the work on renovating apartment buildings is done by municipalities – 80 percent. Renovation works are currently underway through municipal programs.

Mindaugas Sinkevičius, president of the Association of Lithuanian Municipalities, also drew attention to apartment buildings. According to him, the municipalities are trying to be motivators and urgers of residents to carry out renovations of apartment buildings. “The renovation is now being carried out in a hurry, and it should be done by leaps and bounds,” says M. Sinkevičius, bearing in mind that by 2050 we must reach the target set.

It highlights that the renovation is also determined by economic aspects: increased housing costs after renovation, cheaper heating, etc. He also noted that renovation of apartment buildings is faster in smaller cities, like Ignalina, but a bit stagnant in larger cities. However, M. Sinkevičius assures that the municipalities are determined to help.