Member State approach towards a strategy for passive/very low-energy buildings

One of the prescribed actions on buildings in the EU Action Plan on Energy Efficiency [COM(2006)545] is for the Commission to develop a strategy for very low-energy or passive houses (before 2009) towards a more widespread deployment of these building types by 2015. In order to generate a picture of the current national approach in this area EuroACE has initiated a survey. The scope was to create an overview of current and planned strategies in the European countries regarding the implementation of requirements towards very low-energy buildings (on passive level or similar) in their national legislation. The survey shows that many European countries already have taken national actions towards implementing requirements at the level of very low-energy buildings within a time frame of 5-12 years but only a few European Member States (MS) have plans for strengthening the requirements to the existing buildings which is even more important if Europe wants to achieve a major reduction in the overall energy used for conditioning buildings.  The current recast of the EPBD [Directive 2002/91/EC] is an excellent opportunity for the European Commission to follow up on the ambition in the EU Action Plan by introducing a request to MS to: define very low-energy buildings at national level, to draw up a national strategy towards this level of energy performance, and to put focus on upgrading energy performance of the existing building stock.