Recovery Plan, stop funding for fossil boilers if the legislation does not change

Kyoto Club and Legambiente: Italy needs to follow the example of the UK, Sweden and the Netherlands and ban the installation of polluting heating systems starting from 2025.

It is necessary to distinguish between fossil fuel heating systems and “green” systems to regulate access to the 110% superbonus. If the legislation does not change, it will be necessary to exclude gas boilers from the extension of incentives foreseen by the National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR).

This is what Legambiente and Kyoto Club are asking for: the two Associations have launched the awareness campaign “For the decarbonization of heating systems in buildings”.

“On the market there are already several ‘green’ and economically competitive alternatives, such as heat pumps – argue Edoardo Zanchini (Vice President of Legambiente) and Sergio Andreis (Director of Kyoto Club). Superbonus is a good measure, but it can be improved. The 20 billion of euros allocated to this measure are overestimated and withdraw fundamental resources from other initiatives that are heading the decarbonisation of this sector. Some of the incentives could be saved by limiting the supply to heating systems that require renewable energy sources”.

According to a recent study published by Cresme (Centre for Economic, Sociological and Market Research in the Building Sector), domestic heating is one of the main sources of urban pollution in Italy and it is responsible for more than 19% of the emissions produced by our country and 60% of fine dust in urban areas. In Italy more than 19 million gas boilers are installed and it is estimated that more than 7 million of them are older than the Directive 90/396 / EC on the performance of gas appliances. Those systems can be replaced by other gas boilers, which would be more efficient, but in this way, they won’t face the local and global pollution they produce.

If we want to meet the European targets of reducing emissions by 55% in ten years, it is necessary to act now and aim at the decarbonisation of the Italian energy system also through the gradual “scrapping” of methane, LPG and diesel heating systems, starting from the most inefficient ones.

We want to advocate towards the Italian Government, Parliament and at the EU level:

• The exclusion from the PNRR of the extension of the 110% tax credit for fossil fuel heating systems.
• To revise the Ecodesign and Energy Labeling legislation on heating boilers, to ensure that no subsidy schemes for fossil fuel heating are included in the Italian Recovery Plans and renewable based heating is included.
• To ban fossil fuel heating for new buildings as a logical, ambitious follow-up of the NZEB requirements in the EPBD Directive, also taking advantage of the work carried out by the BPIE, Building Performance Institute Europe.
• To phase out fossil fuel heating boilers through Ecodesign regulation and a revision of the Energy Label for heating boilers.
• To enhance the role digitalization measures may play.
• To prohibit, from 1 January 2025, the installation of fossil heating systems and provide for the obligation to install exclusively from renewable sources or that do not produce polluting and greenhouse gas emissions.

In some European countries – Sweden, Netherlands, and United Kingdom – the date by which it will be forbidden to install heating systems from fossil fuels has already been established. We hope that the same choice will be taken also in Italy.