The planned building energy law is met with a lot of criticism because the move away from oil and gas heating is associated with high costs for owners. MP Nina Scheer negotiates the law for the SPD parliamentary group. In an interview with ntv.de, Scheer explains how the Social Democrats want to enable everyone affected to switch to renewable energies. Scheer, climate protection and energy policy spokeswoman for her parliamentary group, questions the exemption for over 80-year-olds and wants less concentration on the heat pump alone. In view of the expected price increases for oil and gas, there is no way around replacing the heating system.
ntv.de: The Union started a signature campaign on Thursday against the Building Energy Act. Is the pressure increasing to make this heating law sufficiently socially just?
Nina Scheer: The signature campaign stirs up fears. This is irresponsible in view of the social task of switching to renewable energies as quickly as possible, including in the heating sector. The price developments show that the greatest price risk for people is to continue to be dependent on fossil fuels. We want to change that with the legal framework to enable the heat transition. The parliamentary procedure is still to come. Instead of creating a mood, factual work is required.
Is the Building Energy Act in danger of becoming the culmination point at which the debate will tip over and the majority no longer support the climate targets for fear of being overwhelmed?
Anyone who speaks from the political side in forecasts runs the risk of having talked about their occurrence. That’s why I concentrate on our goals and demands when it comes to communication. Our social-democratic goal is an enabling law so that people can get away from fossil fuels as quickly as possible. Enablement is key for us.
Several federal states, also under SPD leadership, are calling for the planned exemption for over 80-year-olds to be extended to all pensioners. How do you look at it?
The SPD parliamentary group does not see the 80-year limit as tenable because it is not fair. The switch to renewable energies must also be made economically possible for 79-year-olds, for example. And what about properties that have already been overwritten, for example, in which older people enjoy lifelong residential rights?
Although the law should be passed by July, are there still so many unanswered questions?
Yes, there are many questions that need to be clarified due to the many different application situations in which the range of renewable energies and forms of use should be used – from wood, to waste heat, the heat pump, to hydrogen. The interlocking with the municipal heat transition is also important. Where municipal heat suppliers are planning district heating connections or preparing other offers with renewable energies, people should be able to use this. We will also have to clarify such questions in Parliament in addition to the fair design of subsidies.
What does fair mean in this context?
No one needs to get money from the state who is already so wealthy that he or she can easily switch to renewable systems – especially since the switch to renewable energies also relieves the overall economic burden anyway. At this point, fair means that the step of switching to renewable energies must be made equally economically possible for people if they cannot do it on their own. We also want to focus more on tenants in the Bundestag so that they are not overburdened here, for example with the modernization levy.
You mentioned municipal heating planning: Shouldn’t that be completed nationwide before the ban on new oil and gas heating systems comes into effect? Instead of the beginning of 2024, the subsequent years 2025 to 2027 are also under discussion.
We would be further along if there had already been clear framework conditions from the federal and state governments in the earlier years and if not so many obstacles had been built up for the municipalities and in general for the cross-sector expansion of renewable energies or the conversion of the gas network to hydrogen. We cannot catch up on what has been missed in recent years, but we can avoid and speed up further delays. The interlocking with the municipal heat transition is already reflected in part in the draft law and must now be consistently developed further.
The SPD is more firmly anchored in the municipalities than the Greens, but is therefore also closely linked to the municipal heat suppliers. Some of them are up in arms against the heating law because their gas networks, with which they have previously made good money, are becoming obsolete. As an SPD member of parliament, what do you hear from your own people in the area?
Regardless of party affiliation, the assessments reflect the local differences that federal law must address. Gas networks, which could also be used for hydrogen in the future with a coating, for example, should not be abandoned prematurely just because another theoretical form of heating seems more efficient from a purely physical point of view. Because that would mean abandoning a part of the existing supply structure without the alternatives being expanded or safely usable for all those involved. In some cases, the energy transition is already in full swing, for example when smaller towns within a radius of several kilometers are supplied with a biogas plant and can supply other new buildings. But this requires openness to technology based on renewable energies and district heating. Efficiency glasses that lead to a technological narrowing down to the heat pump, for example, would be a mistake, as this would block the energy transition on a broad scale and in local diversity. Wood and bioenergy are also included, for example. It depends on the mix, also to better reflect regional differences.
The draft law relies too one-sidedly on heat pumps?
If housing companies can’t connect built-in heat pumps to the grid because the electricity infrastructure doesn’t allow it, we have to take it seriously. Unilateral commitments to certain technologies also drive up their prices. Technological diversity helps to accelerate the heat transition and to manage it economically.
Does Robert Habeck wear the ideological glasses of a all electric worldi.e. a transformation that relies unilaterally on green electricity and hydrogen?
I don’t want to judge this in a discrediting way, but rather actively work towards the broad mix of renewable options. One should not make the mistake of only looking at the physical efficiency of a technology and deriving something from it. It is about overall effectiveness – taking into account infrastructure, actors, available technologies and regional diversity. A densely populated structure with large apartment complexes is different from individual houses that are far apart.
Back to the funding mechanisms: Another point of criticism of the high age limit is that retirees, for example, find it harder to get attractive loans.
There is the possibility of getting low-interest or even interest-free loans through the Reconstruction Loan Corporation (KfW). We have to shape it politically in such a way that there is a solution for every situation in life. That’s what I mean by enabling.
Will the subsidies not only cover the purchase of a heat pump, for example, but also the costs of converting to underfloor heating or installing larger radiators?
Before any measure, expert advice is required as to what makes sense in the respective premises. The renovation schedule must be created on this basis, and it must be affordable for everyone. Here, too, it will therefore have to be a question of complete financing in certain cases.
There are great doubts as to whether the requirement of 65 percent renewable energy can be implemented at all in a house with poor insulation values. Are excessively high renovation costs a starting point for hardship exceptions?
The draft law already reflects these constellations. But those affected must also experience this. The law must speak a clear language here. The past year has also shown how drastically electricity and heat prices based on fossil fuels can overwhelm people. We do not know what will come in the next few years. We know that it is guaranteed to be cheaper on the basis of renewable energies. That is why it is responsible, social and fair policy to switch to renewable energies as quickly as possible and to help people in the process – even in houses with poor insulation values, if desired. Because these would suffer the greatest burdens in the event of fossil price increases.
Does it have to be better cushioned so that the modernization levy doesn’t overwhelm the tenants and the owners are in the clear?
As the SPD, we have always found it difficult that tenants can be asked to pay the current amount via the modernization levy. If investments are now made on a large scale, tenants are threatened with being overwhelmed again. It therefore needs limitations and reductions. At the same time, we have to make sure that the landlords or owners take advantage of subsidies for switching the heating system, so that the tenants are not left with the rising costs of fossil fuels despite the possibility of subsidies.
Sebastian Huld spoke to Nina Scheer