Innovative Policy Schemes to Promote Renovation of Multi-Flat Residential Buildings and Address the Problems of Energy Poverty of Aging Societies in Former Socialist Countries

Dalia Streimikiene,Tomas Balezentis

doi:10.3390/su11072015

Dalia Streimikiene, Tomas Balezentis

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/su11072015

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Abstract

In former socialist countries, urban districts having the lowest building and insulation quality and the highest district heat consumption overlap with low-income and older households, creating a problem of energy poverty and a significant barrier to renovation of multi-flat buildings. Thus, the main challenge centers on fuel poverty in an aging society. This paper analyzes the main barriers to renovation of multi-flat buildings and assesses policies and measures to promote renovation of multi-flat buildings in terms of overcoming these barriers in former socialist countries which are currently EU Member States. Furthermore, it presents a new conceptual framework for developing innovative policies and schemes to promote renovation of multi-flat buildings in the face of the renovation barriers outlined above. The Energy Company Obligation (ECO) model or on-bill financing models can be modified and applied to renovation of multi-flat buildings, based on the UK example. Higher payments for utility bills can be shared among households living in multi-flat buildings that require renovation. As in the case of subsidies for communal services, life-line tariffs can be applied to pay for Energy Company Obligation services. This enables sharing the costs of renovation among apartment owners having different incomes and addresses the principle of social justice.

Highlights

Energy efficiency improvements in building stock is the most important measure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, because buildings consume more than 40% of the final energy budget in the EU [1]
Sustainability 2019, 11, 2015 of the following steps (Figure 1): Analysis and identification of the main barriers of energy renovation in multi-flat buildings in former socialist countries that are current EU Member States; Assessment of policies and measures to promote energy renovation of multi-flat buildings in terms of addressing the identified main barriers; Development of the support framework for energy renovation in multi-flat buildings to overcome the main barriers of energy renovation in former socialist countries that are EU Member States; Development of policy implications; Recommendations for future research
The term “barriers to renovation of multi-flat buildings” is based on the concept of an energy efficiency gap [13,29,30] meaning that investments in energy efficiency are considerably lower than what is desirable according to social, economic, environmental, and technological optima

Summary

Introduction

Energy efficiency improvements in building stock is the most important measure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, because buildings consume more than 40% of the final energy budget in the EU [1]. While energy savings in buildings have huge potential, especially in Central and Eastern Europe with its large stock of old and poorly constructed multi-flat buildings, the process of refurbishment is very slow [2]. Various policies and measures have been developed and implemented in EU Member States to achieve NZEBs, some of which are innovative enough; they cannot solve the problems which hamper fast renovation of multi-flat buildings that have the highest energy-saving potential in new EU Member States from Central and Eastern Europe former socialist countries [5,6,7,8,9,10]

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