Energy renovation of Danish single-family houses Economy - barrier, motivation and limit

From the results, it is clear that the knowledge about possible subsidies and counseling is not great among the respondents. They neither know about the possibilities to seek information and advice, nor do they know about the schemes from which grants are given in relation to energy savings of different kinds. There is however more knowledge about the economic grants than about the counseling, and some groups know more than others. The homeowners who have lived for less than one year in their current house have little knowledge about their opportunities and the longer the respondents have lived in the same house, the lower the amount that have not heard about the possibilities for grants and/or counseling. Furthermore, a tendency is seen in the age distributed groups; the younger the homeowner, the higher the amount that have not heard about the presented offers and the lower the amount that have knowledge about the possibilities in the scheme and counseling. Finally a trend visualized is that the longer the education and the higher the income, the higher the level of knowledge about the schemes, the counseling and the possibilities. At the same time, the respondents with a high income also have a large percentage who have not heard about the offers compared to the other income groups.

There have been many reflections about energy saving initiatives and many of the initiatives have already been performed. There is however still a high number missing and particularly the depth of the renovation needs to be increased for Denmark to approach the defined objectives. The positive is that the listed tasks are predominantly carried out or considered to save energy, indicating that the homeowners are aware of this benefit.

On the wish list presented to the homeowners, five wishes were selected significantly more than the remaining seven (More daylight, more view to the surroundings, new façade, change the lay-out, improve the comfort, improve the indoor environment, create a garden/terrace). The five are; Lower energy consumption, re-insulation of the house, new windows, new kitchen/bath and finally a new roof. Since these are at the top of the wish list it is expected that, by including these in a potential renovation, the renovation can be found more appealing. Hence the five wishes should be part of a motivation strategy to increase the incentives for energy renovations for the homeowners.

The evaluation of the five concepts provided knowledge about the investment limit for private energy renovations and the limit for how much the homeowners think is acceptable to pay for the potential benefits and savings.

The general picture is that the prices of the first three concepts (160.000 DKK, 120.000 DKK and 310.000DKK) are fair compared to the outcome, but when the needed investment is at 550.000 DKK and above, the majority think it is too expensive despite the benefits.

The investment limit for the private renovations is defined on the basis on the homeowners’ interest in performing similar projects as the presented. The average limit is below 310.000 DKK the price of concept 3. However some of the respondents have a higher limit, and naturally some a lower limit. To increase the amount of deep renovations large private investments are needed and the results show that this is most likely to happen;

• Before the homeowners have lived for one year in their house, since the investment limit is lowered as time goes on, and these homeowners have proven willing to pay more than average for the same benefits and savings.
• As long as children under the age of 18 years are living in the house, because the homeowners here have a higher than average interest in conducting similar project, hence a higher investment limit.
• When the homeowners are young as this is where the interesting investment is largest.
• In households with a high yearly income. Both the interest in similar projects and the acceptance of the prices of these show that these homeowners will invest in extensive projects.

The respondents’ wishes presented in this report and previously defined motivation factors based on other results from the same questionnaire survey [9,13,14] are therefore expected to generate more motivation in the four above mentioned situations.