EU-funded home renovation schemes are delivering only modest energy savings, with auditors warning billions are being spent on easy upgrades rather than deeper work that would cut consumption for decades.
The European Court of Auditors said measures backed by the Recovery and Resilience Facility, the EU’s COVID recovery fund, too often favour faster projects such as window replacements and solar panels over major renovations capable of cutting energy use by more than 60%.
That matters because nearly three quarters of EU buildings remain energy inefficient and two thirds of the energy used for heating and cooling still comes from fossil fuels.
EU countries plan to spend up to €43 billion (£36 billion) on home renovation through the fund but auditors said projects are rarely ranked by expected energy savings or household need.
Nikolaos Milionis, the ECA Member responsible for the audit, said: “We saw all too often that RRF funds went where they were easiest to spend, not where they would make the biggest difference.”
The report also criticised weak monitoring.
Of 111 renovation measures examined, only three included actual energy-saving targets. Most focused instead on outputs such as the number of homes renovated or the area covered.
Auditors said energy performance certificates were too unreliable and inconsistent to measure real savings properly, with errors and gaps between estimated and actual consumption.
Italy’s Superbonus scheme was singled out as a major concern. It is expected to receive almost €14 billion (£11.8 billion), close to a third of all renovation funding, yet the cost of each unit of energy saved was nearly four times higher than originally expected.
The scheme also covered up to 110% of renovation costs, meaning public support could exceed the price of the work itself.
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