Do volume extensions improve the financial attractiveness of energy renovations?

Abstract

Compared to the private rental and the owner-occupied sector, the non-profit rental sector in the Netherlands is expected to have relatively large possibilities for deep interventions in the housing stock. Nevertheless, recent findings from a monitor containing around 1.5 million homes in the Dutch non-profit rental sector show that the improvement of the energy performance of the respective homes is mostly carried out in small steps: in many of the improved dwellings only one single measure is applied, and deep energy renovations are rare. Advocators of such renovations nevertheless believe that these are the most appropriate way to substantially reducing energy consumption and argue that the developments and proliferation of energy renovation concepts is the best way forward. Others, however, do not see this as realistic and argue that reality forces us to proceed on the path of small interventions. This study sheds more light on this debate from the way in which housing providers conceive and implement their portfolio and asset management strategies. From these investment policies, it seeks explanations for the dominance of the small interventions and investigates the room for a more concentrated allocation of budget resources. To this end, housing providers with different energy investment policies are selected and interviewed.