Huge potential for making Hungarian residential buildings more efficient

Energiaklub carried out the unique research project "Negajoule2020" in which the energy efficiency potential of residential buildings was examined. The research, based on a representative, large-scale statistical sampling and hundreds of sample energy performance certificates, showed that a major part, more than 40% of the energy consumed in residential buildings could be saved if households implemented all the available energy efficiency refurbishments.

Enormous energy saving opportunities reside primarily in family houses – a reason for this is that these houses tend to have a far bigger floorspace than flats in apartment houses and they lose heat on a relatively bigger surface.

According to the calculations, 77% of the theoretical-technical potential, could be profitably gained even beside the strict profitability cirteria set by Energiaklub, that is, the cost of energy saved by means of the investments would exceed the total investment costs in the case of most energy saving measures. A result worth considering is that for the majority of family houses the joint insulation and replacement of doors and windows would be a more profitable investment than a long-term bank deposit.

The exploitation of the total technical-theoretical potential calculated at current prices would generate investments worth of ca. EUR 27 billion. This would require that about 330 thousand households per year should perform one or another kind of renovation of the building within the period until 2020 .

It has also been laid down that the majority of the households is unable to finance bigger investments, even if the investment later proved to be profitable. Evidently, this limits the number of potential investments significantly, and indicates the necessity of state contribution to motivate the refurbishment of residential buildings with predominantly weak energy performance.

The data of the survey, the methodology and the summary of the "Negajoule2020" research project is available here.