Future memorandum shows ways to reduce energy consumption
Frankfurt am Main / Berlin – According to the Federal Association of the German Heating Industry (BDH) and the IG Metall, the heating market and its employees have a decisive role to play in achieving the climate goals. In a joint memorandum for the future, the two organizations are calling on the new federal government, as stated in the coalition agreement, to create suitable framework conditions for the implementation of the heat policy.
“The heating industry has around 74,000 employees, more than half of them in Germany.” This industry can make a decisive contribution to the success of the energy transition, but this will only be possible if core competences and employment are safeguarded and developed in Germany’s development and production. ” Wolfgang Lemb, Managing Director of IG Metall, told a joint meeting of BDH and IG Metall with works councils and company representatives on Wednesday in Berlin.
BDH and IG Metall made it clear that around 40 percent of the German final energy consumption is attributable to the building sector, a large part of which is needed for heating and cooling buildings. At the same time, the German heating system inventory is dramatically outdated, around 70 percent of the systems are not state of the art. Only about 18 percent of the plants use renewable energy.
To increase the potential in the heating market, BDH and IG Metall are calling for a long-term and reliable strategy for the restructuring of the heating market. This must be designed to be open to the world of technology and consistently geared towards reducing CO2. Today’s support programs, such as the market incentive program of the Federal Office for Economic Affairs and Export Control, as well as the funding from the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau, are to be maintained, but greatly simplified. The Building Energy Act, the merger of the Energy Saving Ordinance and the Renewable Energy Heat Act, must be implemented as quickly as possible and financially adequately equipped.
According to BDH and IG Metall, the model of tax incentives for energy modernization is particularly suited to dissolve the modernization backlog and to reduce CO2 in the short term. In doing so, the two organizations support the option agreed in the coalition agreement between grant subsidies and a tax reduction that can contribute to social balance. BDH and IG Metall see a meaningful way in the tax incentives in the u. a. from the Federal Association of German Industry, the German Trade Union Confederation and the German Energy Agency introduced proposal to deduct 30 percent of the investment in higher energy efficiency over three years from the tax debt. The program should be designed for 10 years. “The technical solutions for the implementation of Wärmewende are all present.It is important that the new federal government now makes the right political decisions,” said BDH President Manfred Greis on Wednesday in Berlin.
Furthermore, BDH and IG Metall are calling for the determined expansion of regenerative power generation. Electricity can then increasingly be used in the heating market as part of the sectoral coupling. Due to the volatility of electricity from renewable energies, storage concepts are also to be further developed, with centralized solutions primarily based on power-to-gas and power-to-liquid.