Cost effectiveness of energy-efficiency housing refurbishment
WWF
2024
In the case of owner-occupied houses for a single family almost all energy-related shell refurbishment measures pay for themselves within a few years. When it comes to apartment buildings this tends to take longer – unless political instruments are put in place to counteract this.
These are the results of our study on behalf of the WWF Germany, for whom, on the basis of 32 case studies, we calculated the cost effectiveness of refurbishment measures on single-family houses and apartment buildings.
For a better comparability we limited our example calculations to the refurbishment of the building shell. We also differentiated between four levels of refurbishment (non-refurbished, single measures on the shell, efficient house standard 70 and efficient house standard 55).
Overall, the study shows: For owner-occupiers as well as for tenants, investments offer long-term insurance against future cost risks. Increasing gas network charges and increasing CO2 prices are already foreseeable, and uncertainties concerning energy prices in the future cannot be ruled out. Efficient buildings are much less exposed to all of these risks.
As part of our calculations, in addition to the four different refurbishment levels we also examined four different heating methods. The cost effectiveness of refurbishment measures for the building shell was analysed for a total of 16 single-family homes and for 16 apartment buildings.
We calculated the total costs up to the year 2045. These include annual investment costs for measures carried out on the shell of the building, heating or other measures as well as all ongoing operational costs, such as fuel, maintenance costs or CO2 tax. All these values were accumulated from the year 2024 up to 2045 and the totals were then compared. Finally, we compared the emissions for the different options against each other.
To the study (PDF in German)
Project team: Frederick Julian Lettow, Dominik Rau, Nils Thamling
Latest update: 16.07.2024
Senior Project Manager
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