Banned boilers and green homes, the new rules explained

Europe has reached agreement on new rules for the energy performance of buildings.
After months of work, which began in June, the revision of the Energy performance of buildings directive (EPBD), also known as the "Green Homes Directive", has found its conclusion: greater flexibility for countries.
However, there is also no shortage of rigid objectives, such as new zero-emission buildings from 2030, measures to help reduce energy bills and fight climate change and the much-feared boiler ban.
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The new rules foresee a transition to buildings with increasingly efficient energy performance within the next few years.
The approved measures were commented as "concrete for improving life", but also capable of leading to the reduction of energy bills thanks to the new green stimuli.
The European Parliament speaker Ciaran Cuffe spoke of an "extraordinary result for the decarbonisation of the building stock at a global level".
In Italy, the greater flexibility was well received, in particular by the president of Confedilizia, Giorgio Spaziani Testa who confirmed with satisfaction the common sense approach with respect to 12 October, an "approach that eliminates direct obligations for owners, leaving States greater freedom of action”.
Not surprisingly, among the regulations is the obligation to install solar panels, but only on public and large non-residential buildings (there are exceptions).
While the end of fossil fuel heating systems in homes has been postponed from 2035 to 2040.
Elimination of fossil fuel boilers According to the directives, Member States will have to take measures to decarbonise heating systems and gradually eliminate fossil fuels from heating and cooling.
The aim is to gradually phase out fossil fuel boilers by 2040.
Member States, as stated in the European Parliament's notes on the decisions taken, will also have to stop subsidizing autonomous fossil fuel boilers from 2025 Attention: incentives will still be possible for hybrid heating systems, such as those that combine a boiler with a solar thermal system or a heat pump.
read also Alternatives to the gas boiler, what are they and which are convenient What are the exemptions from the emission reduction objectives? There is no shortage of flexibility and exemptions to the new rules.
Although all new buildings should be zero-emission from 2030, for those already owned, states are asked to put in place measures to ensure an emissions reduction of at least 16% by 2030 and 20-22% by 2035.
The obligation to renovate all buildings, residential and non-residential, is abolished, in favor of a renovation of 16% of the total building stock.
The following are exempt from this sum: agricultural buildings; historic structures; (flexibility) buildings of particular architectural or historical value, temporary buildings and churches and places of worship.