Developers are protesting against energy savings, driving up apartment prices

Simon Speigner: Passive apartment building in Salzburg, 2006

Prague - The largest Czech developers have embarked on a fight against the mandatory increase in the energy efficiency of buildings. They claim that apartments will become more expensive by up to 15% as a result, and that energy savings will be swallowed up by higher operating costs of the technologies.
    Reducing energy consumption will initially affect newly built public buildings, such as offices, hospitals, or schools. From 2016, public buildings larger than 1500 m² will be required to have "nearly zero" energy consumption, and two years later, all other buildings of the same size will also be included. Starting in 2020, the obligation of "nearly zero" energy consumption will apply to all new buildings.
    "The EU requirement for gradual reduction of energy consumption through the introduction of standards requiring the construction of passive and energy-efficient buildings is another example of EU officials making decisions about something they do not understand and are under pressure from lobbyists," says Evžen Korec, CEO and Chairman of the Board of Ekospol.
    According to him, the cheapest apartments will disappear from the market as a result. "The introduction of this EU standard will result in an increase in their price by approximately 15%," claims Korec.
    A similar estimate comes from Marcel Soural, CEO of Trigema. "We believe that construction will be more expensive by 10 to 15 percent, but operating costs will not decrease. Any savings I make on energy will be offset by additional costs for the operation and maintenance of more demanding technologies," Soural noted, suggesting that the state is mandating the market to eliminate all cheap apartments.
    "There will be no cheap apartments because they will have to have expensive technology. We cannot do anything other than build energy-efficient apartments regardless of whether people want them and whether they will have money for them," stated the head of Trigema, adding that the regulation will be the same disaster as the support for photovoltaic power plants.
    Developers particularly question the promised savings related to lower energy consumption. "We will tell clients that they will save on paper. But in reality, we will not be able to guarantee that. The user's ability to use these technologies correctly is not very high. It will be difficult to teach people that, for example, when using recuperation (automated air exchange - note of ČTK), they should not ventilate," Soural warned.
    According to Korec, it is logical that people ventilate even despite bans in buildings with recuperation and controlled ventilation. "Some people smoke at home, or have stale air in the bedroom, there is steam or heavy air from cooking in the kitchen, and they want to ventilate it immediately," noted Korec from Ekospol.
    Jiří Vajner, Commercial Director of Central Group, argues that apartment prices would rise even without this regulation. "We can expect that along with the rise in costs of other goods, housing prices will also increase. Our population is growing slightly, so it can be expected that the demand for new housing will not diminish. On the contrary, there will be an increasing interest in 'healthy living', where the use of new technologies to increase the quality of the living environment, such as recuperative ventilation, will become common," Vajner estimates future developments.
    Low-energy apartments with controlled recuperation currently make up a mere fraction of the total number of apartments - about three percent. The costs of this investment reportedly return in 20 to 25 years, but expenses for repairs, maintenance, and service are not included.