Oil-fired boilers should disappear from social housing "by 2027", according to Ancols

Social housing providers are on track to replace the last oil-fired heaters in their homes, "by 2027", and to change some of the gas boilers, according to figures presented a few days ago by the National Authority for the Control of Social Housing (Ancols).

Gas is the energy most used for heating in social housing, present in 55% of homes, while fuel oil was used in less than 1% of homes in 2023.

In accordance with the State's National Low Carbon Strategy (SNBC), social housing providers are gradually replacing oil-fired boilers by 2030.

"By 2027, there will no longer be oil heating in social housing; if any remain, it will be in very specific cases of isolated dwellings," explained Raphaël Badaoui, statistical studies officer at Ancols, during a press conference.

The SNBC also plans to replace gas boilers with decarbonized heating in 350.000 homes per year, which corresponds to 85.000 social housing units when this national objective is applied to the social housing stock.

Given the pace of work planned by social landlords, they are following a trajectory "close" to the SNBC, according to Ancols, which calculates that they will "fulfill 76%" of the annual target for replacing gas heating systems "by 2025".

These results are based on declarations of work carried out between 2018 and 2023 and planned annually from 2025.

Each year between 2018 and 2023, more than 100.000 social housing units underwent work on their heating systems, but three-quarters of these involved replacements without a change in the energy source. "Thus, in five years, only 3,2% of social housing units had their heating systems modified," notes the Ancols study.

Changes in heating methods should nevertheless accelerate from 2025, with "200.000 work operations per year, of which 44% are changes in energy source", reports Raphaël Badaoui.

Between 2018 and 2023, 73% of heating systems replaced were replaced by connection to an urban heating network, an energy source that supplies 20% of social housing in 2023.

Heat pumps and electric heaters account for only 9% of energy source changes made between 2018 and 2023, but social landlords plan to multiply this figure by 4 and switch to electric heating in 33% of projects.

Illustrative image of the article via Depositphotos.com.