Natural gas plants are widely used in Europe today to provide hot water and space heating in domestic, commercial and industrial buildings. They produce 38% of the EU’s energy for space heating in houses. The EU’s goals are to replace plants running on natural gas as soon as possible.

The REPowerEU proposals encourage member states to phase out fossil fuel power plants from buildings, strengthen national requirements for replacing small power plants and limit the introduction of gas-fired power plants after 2029.

REPowerEU is also encouraging member states to introduce national bans on residential fossil fuel power plants in existing and new homes. Although there are such intentions at the EU level, there is still no EU legislation that would introduce such prohibitions.

Eight European countries have already started the process of banning the use of gas installations in buildings:

• 1. Denmark – since 2013, it has been prohibited to connect new buildings to the natural gas network. It has been established that by 2028, half of the houses will be connected to centralized heating networks

• 2. Norway – since 2017, it has banned the connection of new buildings to the natural gas network

• 3. The Netherlands – since 2018, it has been prohibited to connect new buildings to the natural gas network

• 4. France – in connection with the introduction of restrictions on CO2 emissions for heating installations of new buildings, it has de facto banned the installation of gas and oil installations from 2022.

• 5. Austria – from 2024, it prohibits the repair of old TPPs and the installation of new TPPs.

• 6. Germany – since 2024, obligates 64% of the energy used for new heating systems to come from renewable energy sources, de facto prohibits the installation of gas and oil installations since 2022.

• 7. Great Britain – from 2025, it is forbidden to install gas plants and oil products in new buildings.

• 8. Belgium – from 2025, it will ban the installation of fossil fuel power plants in new buildings.

Replacing all gas installations will not be easy and fast because of the large number of existing installations (there are around 65 million gas installations in the EU) and because many owners do not have the money to pay for their replacement.

If we add that there are many objects equipped with thermal installations that are rented out, the situation becomes even more complicated, the effect is an increase in rent due to the investment of the owner, as well as a decrease in the area of ​​​​rented housing. by refusing to make these investments.

Another aspect to take into account is the fact that many buildings in Romania have a low degree of thermal insulation, which makes the investment in an alternative gas plant heating solution in Romania much higher than a similar level in Europe (example 150 m, very well insulated a house needs an investment in a heat pump of about 15,000 euros, the same poorly insulated house needs an investment of about 25,000 euros).

Today, natural gas used in residential installations is not covered by the Emissions Trading System (ETS) because the equipment is of low capacity.

This means that heating with natural gas is cheaper than heating with natural gas heating systems, where there is an obligation to pay CO2 emission certificates. At the EU level, there are discussions on “eliminating the anomaly and establishing fair conditions of competition for heating with natural gas and heating systems or other heating systems”.

As part of its Fit for 55 package in July 2021, the Commission proposed to do this by extending the ETS Directive (ETS 2) to include fossil fuels used in buildings and to impose obligations on fuel suppliers. This proposal has not yet received widespread support.

As in many other situations, what happens in Western Europe is also adopted in Eastern Europe!

N. Ed: Dumitru Kiselice is the president of the Intellectual Energy Association