Analysing the Energy Efficiency Renovation Rates in the Dutch Residential Sector

Shima Ebrahimigharehbaghi,Henk J Visscher,Queena K Qian,Paula Van Den Brom,Faidra Filippidou,S.I Tanabe,M.C Gameiro Da Silva,J Kurnitski,L Mazzarela,G Cao,H Zhang,I Nastase,C Inard,P Wargocki

doi:10.1051/e3sconf/201911103019

Abstract

The housing stock has a major share in energy consumption and CO2 emissions in the Netherlands. CO2 emissions increased 2.5% year-on-year in the first quarter of 2018. Higher CO2 emissions were principally due to raised gas consumption for heating in the residential and service sector1. Energy efficiency renovations can contribute considerably in reducing energy consumption and achieving the EU and national energy efficiency targets. However, based on recent research2, the renovation rates in the Dutch social housing sector are not adequate to achieve the energy efficiency targets. Moreover, the deep renovation rates are almost negligible in this sector. The Dutch housing stock consists of the owner-occupied sector and rental sector (social housing and private rental houses) with shares equal to 69.4% and 30.6%, respectively. Considering the major share of the housing sector in energy consumption, the aim of the current study is to evaluate and compare the renovation rates in these sectors and the potential contribution of each one in achieving the energy efficiency targets. By renovation rate, we mean the percentage changes in the number of the identical houses moving from one energy label to the more efficient energy labels. The Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) and Statistics Netherlands (CBS) databases are used to conduct the statistical analysis. The results show that the renovation rates are almost the same in these three sectors, despite the expectation of much higher renovation rates in the social housing sector.

Highlights

Worldwide buildings consume 30% of the final energy and more than 55% of global electricity demand[3]
Considering the major share of the housing stock in the final energy consumption, the aim of the current paper is to evaluate the energy renovation rate in the owner-occupied and rental sectors and the potential contribution of different energy renovation levels in achieving the energy efficiency targets
As expected the results show that significantly more rental dwellings have an energy label than owner-occupied houses

Summary

Introduction

Worldwide buildings consume 30% of the final energy and more than 55% of global electricity demand[3]. The existing residential sector is the single most important player, worldwide - and in the European Union (EU) and the Netherlands - since existing dwellings are responsible for 25.7% if the final energy consumption in the EU 28 (all 28 Member States) 4. Due to the long lifespan of buildings, existing buildings today will constitute a major part of the future housing stock for several decades 5. Energy renovations offer unique opportunities for reducing the energy consumption and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on a national scale in the Netherlands, and on an EU and global level. At current rates it is claimed that more than 100 years will be needed to renovate the EU building stock 11. In the Netherlands, it is expected that the renovation activity will be greater than the construction and demolition activity in the future 5,12

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Conclusion