Insulation industry news from Global Insulation

Spain: Knauf Insulation has called on Spain, as the current president of the Council of the European Union, to further decarbonise building stock in the region.

Oscar Del Rio, the general manager of Knauf Insulation Iberia, said “The outcome of domestic politics may still be uncertain at the moment, but on the international stage, Spain holds the presidency of the Council of the European Union until the end of December 2023 and its focus must be crystal clear. Europe needs to seize the opportunity of the recast of the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) to ensure an approach that will decarbonise its building stock by increasing renovation rates and committing to quality retrofit standards that deliver real performance.”

The insulation producer cited research by the Building Performance Institute (BPIE), which it supported, that found that insulating all Europe’s residential buildings would cut energy demand for space heating by 44%, compared to 2020, making a ‘significant’ contribution to energy security and the EU’s 2050 climate goals. The company has also urged policy makers to introduce ‘one-stop shops’ for renovation to enable building owners to make retrofitting easier and to use digital tools to make it easier for people to view potential performance savings.

The company used Spain as an example of a country that needs a more ambitious renovation strategy. It noted that, according to Spain’s Energy Renovation of the Building Sector strategy, 9.7 million homes or 50% of residential buildings were built before 1980 and an additional one million are described as in a poor or dilapidated condition. In addition, 81% of existing buildings are in the E, F or G emissions categories and 84.5% are in these categories for energy consumption. It quoted research by Renovate Europe that found that the renovation rate of buildings in Spain was eight to 10 times lower than the average for neighbouring countries.

Europe: Knauf Insulation has joined Daikin, Danfoss, Rockwool, Saint-Gobain, Signify and Velux to promote building energy efficiency in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE). The six companies have signed a memorandum that commits them to work together to encourage cooperation and allocation of ‘personal and financial resources’ on a country level to establish and maintain national associations equipped with the expertise to engage in public debates effectively and the skills to inspire better policies.

Radek Bedrna, Knauf Insulation’s managing director for Eastern Europe and Middle East, said “This memorandum is a powerful commitment to tackle the building and energy challenges facing CEE. It will provide the campaigning initiatives with the needed support to drive the policy changes that will be transformational for building renovation in the region.” He added that the region has five out of seven European Union (EU) countries with the highest gas saving potential arising from insulating residential buildings. Two thirds of the 43.6m homes in single- and multi-family house in the CEE region were reportedly built before 1989 and are energy inefficient.

The companies signed the document at the Central and Eastern European Energy Efficiency Forum (C4E) in late May 2023. The forum, which brought together more than 240 public authority representatives with advocacy groups, non-government organisations (NGO) and private companies, called on policy makers to roll out well-designed subsidy schemes with a long-term outlook.

UK: The government has announced funding of up to Euro1.7bn to retrofit 130,000 social and low income homes in England with energy efficiency measures including insulation. It says that the upgrades will help households save around Euro450 - 800/yr on their energy bills at current prices and funding could support around 19,000 green energy sector jobs. The money will be made available via the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund and Home Upgrade Grant schemes.

Local authorities and social housing providers will be able to submit bids for funding and will deliver upgrades from early 2023 until March 2025, building on the more than 30,000 homes already being upgraded under the Social Housing Decarbonisation Fund and Home Upgrade Grant schemes.