Czech Building Stock: Renovation Wave Scenarios and Potential for CO2 Savings until 2050

Antonín Lupíšek,Tomáš Trubačík,Petr Holub

doi:10.3390/en14092455

Abstract

One of the major anthropogenic sources of greenhouse gases is the operation of building stock. Improving its energy efficiency has the potential to significantly contribute to achieving climate change mitigation targets. The purpose of this study was to roughly estimate such potential for the operation of the national building stock of Czechia to steer the national debate on the development of related national plans. The estimation is based on a simplified energy model of the Czech building stock that consists of sub-models of residential and nonresidential building stocks, for which their future energy consumptions, shares of energy carriers and sources, and emission factors were modeled in four scenarios. Uncertainties from the approximation of the emission factors were investigated in a sensitivity analysis. The results showed that the operation of the Czech building stock in 2016 totaled 36.9 Mt CO2, which represented 34.6% of the total national carbon dioxide emissions. The four building stock scenarios could produce reductions in the carbon dioxide emissions of between 28% and 93% by 2050, when also considering on-side production from photovoltaics. The implementation of the most ambitious scenario would represent a drop in national CO2 yearly emissions by 43.2% by 2050 (compared to 2016).

Highlights

One of the major anthropogenic sources of greenhouse gases is the operation of buildings [7], so improving the energy efficiency of the building stock has the potential to significantly contribute to achieving the national climate change mitigation targets [8]
The following sections describe the origin of the base data of the composition of the Czech building stock (CBS); the modeling of the final energy consumption of the CBS; four scenarios of the depth and pace of energy retrofitting; the projection of the shares of energy carriers on the final energy consumption in the four scenarios; and the forecast of the development of the building-attached and building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV)
The emission factor change during the day and over the year in various situations should be considered, and the marginal emission factor should be calculated for the specific subcategories of the national building stock, including forecasting future scenarios related to the future composition of the power sector, flexibility and smartness of the energy grid, and flexibility and smartness of the buildings

Summary

Introduction

In the context of climate change mitigation, the world’s nations are drafting and discussing their plans to achieve their national greenhouse gas reduction commitments [1,2,3,4]. The mitigation of climate change is featured in the strategic plans of the European Commission [5]. One of the major anthropogenic sources of greenhouse gases is the operation of buildings [7], so improving the energy efficiency of the building stock has the potential to significantly contribute to achieving the national climate change mitigation targets [8]. At the scale of a single building, a growing body of literature is focused on the theory of reducing buildings’ greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Many climate-related activities are ongoing at the municipal level; in Europe, the most visible seems to be the Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy [21]

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