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From the 3-liter house to the zero-heating cost house
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The Prospects
There are around 36 million residential units in Germany, of which about 24 million were built before 1979, i.e. before energy-efficient construction had entered general awareness. The huge amounts of CO2 emissions that can be saved by simple insulation alone are clear from the following example. If a multi-unit older building that uses 25 liters of heating oil per square meter per year is modernized down to a 7-liter standard, not only do the residents of an 80 square meter apartment save 1,440 liters of heating oil a year, they also reduce CO2 emissions by 4.6 tons a year. Private households are responsible for around 14 percent of the total CO2 emissions in Germany, or a good 120 million tons per year.
Currently, the German Energy Saving Order stipulates maximum annual consumption limits of 7 liters per square meter for new buildings, and 11 for older buildings. The projects discussed here demonstrate that we have the technical knowledge and conditions to do considerably better. As Karl Arenz notes, "Around 600,000 residential units are up for modernization every year. If all of them were modernized to the 7-liter standard, we would save an additional 3 million tons of CO2 every year and nearly 1 billion liters of heating oil. Furthermore, this would also support the job market."
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