Real es­ta­te: the hea­ting tran­si­ti­on is not hap­pe­ning fast en­ough

The latest figures from Agora Energiewende and Dena show that the climate transition in the building sector is still not making enough progress. While Germany's greenhouse gas emissions fell by three percent overall to 656 million tons in 2024, the weaker decline in real estate was only due to the mild weather. Without this effect, emissions would actually have risen - so there was no structural progress.

Buildings are responsible for 40 percent of CO₂ emissions, mainly caused by heating. Renewable energies still play far too small a role and over 70 percent of heat in homes comes from burning gas and oil. This will affect tenants and landlords in the coming years due to rising CO₂ prices.

Regardless of the stance on the current “Heating Act”, any new federal government must tackle this challenge. The previous strategy of driving forward the heating transition primarily through more and more regulations and provisions has not worked. This has made modernizations and new buildings more complicated and more expensive and has led to a noticeable reluctance to invest - as the 46% drop in demand for heat pumps last year compared to 2023 clearly shows.  

The building sector faces the challenge of reducing its CO₂ emissions from 110 million to 67 million tons by 2030. To achieve this, more than one million heating systems would have to be modernized every year. Today, however, the reality is very different: Fossil heating systems using oil and gas were sold more than twice as often as heat pumps and biomass stoves in 2024. The heating transition is not gaining enough momentum.

It is now important to do the right things first and do them quickly. A major key to the climate transition is the rapid reduction of CO₂ emissions, especially in existing properties. This is exactly what we are working on at PAUL: we combine AI-supported energy management systems in the boiler room with heat pumps and photovoltaic systems.

In this way, we ensure climate-neutral buildings, increase their energy efficiency class and their market value – and protect tenants from negative surprises on their energy bills.