30,000 million euros. It is the investment that it is estimated that Spanish households will have to make to rehabilitate their homes before 2030, according to the figures from the future National Building Renovation Plan prepared by the Government and which covers the period from 2020.
Spain has an old and inefficient housing stock, with more than half of the houses built more than 45 years ago, when there were still no regulations on energy efficiency. Some six million families live in properties with deficiencies, according to data from the text of the new State Housing Plan on which the Government is working. From the ministry headed by Isabel Rodríguez, however, they report that the country has plugged into the rehabilitation wave, with an average of about 540,000 works per year between 2020 and 2023.
The Ministry of Housing will put out to public consultation this Friday its new National Building Renovation Plan, which will cover until 2030 and will be incorporated into the National Integrated Energy and Climate Plan (PNIEC). The document seeks to reduce residential energy consumption by 25% in this decade, through seven key policies: the energy rehabilitation of buildings; urban regeneration and sustainable neighborhoods; the fight against energy poverty; innovation, circularity and industrialization; the promotion of renewable energy; governance and financing; and support, awareness and training.
“It is a national project that involves a renovation of the park, taking into account the principles of quality architecture, a comprehensive approach and leaving no one behind,” explain sources from the Ministry, who insist that this plan will mean savings of up to 60% on the bills paid by households. “Our building stock is very old, which means that the homes are very inefficient from an energy point of view, they consume a lot of energy and citizens have to pay a lot on their electricity bill.”
The National Building Renovation Plan is part of compliance with the Energy Efficiency Directive, but its objectives are more ambitious. Europe demands that the member countries of the community club reduce consumption in the residential park by 16% by 2030; 20% by 2035; and zero emissions by mid-century. But the good progress of work in Spain encourages the ministry to mark a 25% reduction by the end of this decade.
According to the data handled by Housing, currently Spain would be in a reduction of 10%, compared to 7% in Europe. “We are well on our way and, if we continue with this trend, which is supported by the consumption data that is being reported, in 2030 we will reduce this consumption by 25% and in 2035, by 33%,” they point out.
The Ministry’s estimates are based on work certificates and consumption data and the National Statistics Institute (INE) survey that asks citizens when they have done some type of work or update in their homes. With this data, Housing estimates that an average of 540,000 renovations have been carried out per year between 2020 and 2023. Of them, 31,500 would be deep and 508,500 would be medium or light, such as changing all or some windows.
In total, there are just over 1.6 million renovations, but as not all of them have the same weight in terms of improvement in energy efficiency, the Government makes an equivalence to total homes, in order to establish a comparison with what the European directive requires.
In this way, 614,000 homes would have already been rehabilitated, of the almost 1.6 million that the Plan commits to. The Spanish residential park has about nine million buildings, which bring together 36 million homes, in addition to a tertiary sector with about 370,000 buildings, which must also reduce their energy bill by 16% by 2030 and 26% by 2033, with the same horizon of zero emissions in 2050.
Although the ministry emphasizes this reduction in the bill, of up to 60%, which represents the rehabilitation of the home and the impact on improving the quality of life, the reforms will not come for free. According to the calculations of this department, the total investment required to meet the objectives of the Plan amounts to 39,350 million euros in this decade. Of that figure, about 11,000 million, almost 30%, will be public money. Although the Ministry does not currently know the total amount of private investment that has been made in these first five years, between 2020 and 2025, sources from this department affirm that “citizens are understanding the importance of renewal.” The data used is the expenses that have been deducted on average from the income tax returns for the years 2023 and 2024, about 1,925 euros, for a total amount of about 1,100 million euros declared by 233,000 taxpayers.
The State Housing Plan, on which the ministry works with the autonomous communities, contemplates a total budget of about 7,000 million, of which 30% – about 2,100 million – will be allocated to renovation and rehabilitation work on buildings. Furthermore, sources from this department trust in the contribution of the Social Climate Plan, which is being worked on by the European Commission and with a focus on the adaptation of vulnerable households that suffer from energy poverty and cannot renovate their homes.
With the budget still not closed, about 3,000 million more could arrive this way. In addition, it would be necessary to add the funds dedicated to technical work, apart from subsidies and aid, and to work on public buildings.
To reduce this bill, which must be borne by private individuals, mainly families, the Energy Savings Certificates (CAE) system has been launched. It is an electronic document that guarantees that an action has resulted in final energy savings equivalent to one kWh. “This instrument allows energy savings to be monetized, recovering part of the cost of investments in energy efficiency (change of lighting, improvement of thermal insulation, renovation of industrial or domestic equipment, etc.), since the end user may receive a consideration if they sell the savings obtained,” explains the Ministry for the Ecological Transition on its website.
At the moment, it is an instrument “that is beginning to take off”, indicate Housing sources, but it would allow agents who have the obligation to reduce their emissions to ‘buy’ and finance the energy savings of individuals to meet their obligations.
In any case, the document that will be published this Friday has been subject to a participatory process, in which 80 civil society agents, business associations and companies and public administrations have collaborated, who have focused their observations on energy efficiency, financing and aid, dissemination and training, management instruments, energy poverty and innovation.
With the new contributions, Housing’s intention is to have the final draft before the end of the year. Afterwards, the Commission will have a semester to make observations and the Government, another six months, at most, to incorporate these improvements and take it to the Council of Ministers, so the final approval of the strategy could be extended until the end of 2026.
Source: www.eldiario.es
