By: ian
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By: Nikolaus J. Kurmayer
This article is part of Euractiv’s special report The challenge of decarbonising Europe’s largest buildings.
As lawmakers in Berlin debate the optimum way to achieve a climate-neutral building stock, it is becoming increasingly clear that a simple switch to cleaner heating may not be enough, particularly in terms of their own building, the Bundestag.
Buildings are a major roadblock on the EU’s path to climate neutrality, emitting more than a third of the bloc’s CO2. While consumers can increasingly opt for climate-friendly heating technologies like heat pumps, deep renovations are seen as necessary to accompany the shift.
To get there, the European Commission proposed to renovate the 15% worst-performing buildings first, where the largest energy savings are to be made. But this individual house approach has proven deeply unpopular with some German politicians.
“The EU’s renovation obligation is illusory,” said Daniel Föst, the construction and housing spokesman for the liberal FDP’s parliamentary group in the Bundestag. The FDP is one of the three parties in the German government’s ruling coalition, alongside the Social Democrats and the Greens.
Instead, German liberals favour a technology neutral approach to decarbonising heat. A de-facto ban on gas boilers is being hotly debated in Berlin.
Even the Bundestag itself, home to Germany’s federal parliament, has issues when it comes to heating. When asked by the FDP, the institution’s administration said switching to heat pumps was not immediately possible.
“The heating systems of the German Bundestag are not suitable for the heat pump systems available today due to the required flow temperatures of up to 110 °C,” it replied in answer to the FDP’s climate policy spokesman, Frank Schäffler.
This is despite the fact that the Bundestag and its many adjacent office buildings hosting lawmakers and their staff are big consumers of energy.
In 2022, the Bundestag consumed 1.1 million cubic metres of natural gas – about 1% of an LNG tanker’s shipping volume – as well as 2.7 million litres of diesel as four diesel generators are ready in case of grid-based disruption.
The Bundestag’s administration is quick to stress that diesel is ecologically friendly, as it is a plant product. Wasted heat, released from burning diesel for electricity, is funnelled into the bedrock beneath the building and reused in winter with an energy loss of 40% – an amount that could be seen as inefficient in modern times.
Time for a renovation
Constructed in 1894, the Reichstag was set aflame in 1933, damaged during WWII, partially torn down during the Soviet occupation, rebuilt in 1973 and modernised in 1999.
Now, the sage building could be up for another renovation in order to make it fit for a heat pump.
The federal construction and spatial planning agency is examining “the structural and technical possibilities for reducing energy consumption” in connection with the development of a “concept for the energy-efficient renovation of the existing buildings of the German Bundestag in the next few years,” reports pleiteticker.
“Should adjustments be made to the heating systems, the use of heat pumps and other energy-efficient heating systems would also be conceivable,” the administration adds.
But any refurbishment is unlikely to happen soon, or quickly.
A renovation of the similarly iconic Pergamon Museum, hosting an impressive collection of antique art, will see its doors shuttered for the next four years.
The Pergamon’s renovation process is currently projected to take until 2037. It remains to be seen whether a renovation of the Bundestag can be achieved before Germany’s 2045 climate neutrality target is reached.
[Edited by Alice Taylor and Frédéric Simon]