Energy renovation: too expensive and not enough aid, according to the Economic and Social Council

The energy renovation of housing remains too expensive to be made compulsory without support, judges the Economic and Social Council (CESE), which suggests avenues of financing to help owners, such as specific loans repayable on sale or advances on inheritance.

The opinion voted on Tuesday thus recommends "a system of advances reimbursed during the sale of the property or the estate, accessible subject to means testing".

At the same time, the ESEC recommends encouraging banks to offer "acquisition-improvement" or "energy rehabilitation" loans repayable when the property is resold or when the owner dies.

Another method of financing the work is recommended in the opinion, consisting of "raising existing buildings to create new housing there, the sale of which would make it possible to carry out the necessary work on the lower floors".

Certain planning rules should be adapted outside classified perimeters, recommends the ESEC, which notes the reluctance that this solution arouses in France, unlike neighboring countries.

Noting the need to accelerate and intensify energy renovation efforts in buildings, which represent 44% of final energy consumption, the ESEC emphasizes that the obstacle remains largely financial. The situation is even more glaring overseas.

“You have to bear in mind that a global (or high-performance) renovation costs on average between 25.000 and 60.000 euros and that at least 5 million dwellings must benefit from it in the long term,” he says.

In practice, 99% of households request Maprimerénov' assistance for "limited work" and the replacement of only certain parts of the dwelling, heating, windows or roofing.

Of the nearly 650.000 Maprimerénov' files accepted in 2021, the vast majority concerned a relatively low average premium amount of around 3.000 euros, while the overall renovations concerned just under 1.000 files, points out the ESEC.

However, only a global renovation allows a reduction of more than 50% in energy consumption: the EESC therefore calls for "significantly strengthening the package granted for a global renovation in order to make it much more incentive".

"The persistence of too high a level of remaining costs has (...) the consequence of encouraging partial work on housing, far from the overall renovation which alone allows a real change in thermal qualities", observes the ESEC, an "even more flagrant statement of failure for condominiums".