"We finally need effective tax incentives in order to leverage the enormous CO2 savings potential in the heating market." With this conclusion, BDH President Uwe Glock closed the BDH symposium at the 20th Berlin event Energy days.
Have the course been set correctly to achieve the 2030 climate protection goals in the building sector? This question was the focus of the podium made up of top-class experts from politics and associations. There was agreement that the instruments to date are insufficient to achieve the 2030 targets.
Tax Incentive
“The owner-occupied one and two-family houses, in particular, have considerable CO2 -saving potential that has not been adequately addressed by the previous subsidy offers. That is why the funding framework should be supplemented with tax incentives for this target group as quickly as possible,” said Prof. Dr. Andreas Holm, Leister at the Research Institute for Thermal Protection eV (FIW). CO2 saving potential was not addressed by subsidy offers, thus the funding core should be supplemented with tax incentives
For years there has been a struggle to introduce tax incentives in order to accelerate the vigorous modernization of the building stock. Around 13 million of the approximate 21 million boilers in Germany are outdated and do not correspond to the state of the art. “There is enough private capital for energy-efficient renovation, but it must be mobilized in a targeted manner through appropriate state incentives,” Uwe Glock summarized the discussion. This is all the more urgent since Germany is threatened with annual fines in the millions from 2020 if the climate targets are not met.
Reducing CO2 Emissions By 2030
"A study by the Alliance for Building Energy Efficiency (geea) also shows that business as usual is not enough," Glock continues.
At the beginning of May, geea presented a concrete package of measures on how CO2 emissions in the heating sector could be reduced by an additional 13 million tons of CO2 by 2030. The concept relies primarily on promotional measures such as the long-announced tax incentives for private homeowners and improved depreciation options for the real estate industry.