Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/203435 
Year of Publication: 
2019
Citation: 
[Journal:] DIW Weekly Report [ISSN:] 2568-7697 [Volume:] 9 [Issue:] 35/36 [Publisher:] Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW) [Place:] Berlin [Year:] 2019 [Pages:] 303-312
Publisher: 
Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (DIW), Berlin
Abstract: 
Residential heating accounts for almost one-fifth of Germany's final energy consumption. This report evaluates an extensive database of heating bills for buildings with two or more apartments, representing more than two-thirds of the total housing stock in Germany. Despite commitments to pressing climate targets, the rate of thermal upgrades of the existing housing stock has remained low since the turn of the 21st century, while heating energy demanded per square meter by private households has been on an upward trend since 2015. This is an alarming development with respect to the 2050 climate goals for the buildings sector. An additional set of policies are therefore necessary to achieve the yet-unrealized reductions in energy consumption in the building sector. These include, for example, tax incentives for top-end retrofits that have been discussed for more than a decade and policies targeting household behavior such as providing consumers with more frequent and timely information.
Subjects: 
residential buildings
heating energy consumption
heating fuel costs
renovation rate
retrofit rate
energy efficiency
JEL: 
R31
Q21
Q40
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Article

Files in This Item:
File
Size
517.37 kB





Items in EconStor are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.