Nowadays it is more rational for Ukraine to invest in energy efficiency measures, instead of subsidies, the Better Regulation Delivery Office (BRDO) Construction Sector Head Olena Shuliak thinks. She expressed this thesis in her speech during the roundtable “Affordable housing can be energy efficient” organized by the State Fund for Support of Youth Housing Construction.
The Ukrainian housing stock is more than 1 billion square meters now, more than 50% of which had been built before 1980 and cannot be considered as the energy efficiency one by modern standards. According to the information given by the Vice Chairman of State Fund for Support of Youth Housing Construction Sergei Komnatnyy, a living price in a new house is much lower than in the old one. The Fund’s representative stated that the main reason of this is a using of modern energy efficient technologies in new buildings. That is why, in modern energy efficient buildings, dwellers economize on heating from 30 to 50% compared to owners of old buildings.
“The system approach to resolve the energy efficiency issues must become a priority of state policy in construction. Now, in Ukraine, there are all conditions to make the transition to energy efficient construction with using the production of national companies. The state must create favorable conditions for affordable energy efficient housing construction by introducing incentive programmes for real estate developers and implementing the effective regulatory policy in this field,” Olena Shuliak stated.
The budget provides for more than 80 billion hryvnias on subsidies for the population for using the energy resources, which is almost 4% of GDP, in 2017. However, construction contribution in the GDP reaches a bit more than 2% and constantly reduces. The state will benefit from the implementation of energy efficient programs in housing construction by reducing the energy consumption, as now the housing and utilities infrastructure of Ukraine consumes more than 40% of state energy recourses.
According to experts, creating the favorable conditions for energy efficient construction development and state support for real estate developers, who will build affordable housing on the energy efficient standards, will not only reduce the costs on subsidies (in fact, on preservation of the old housing stock and almost 10% of budget loss), but also will stimulate the development of the whole construction area and 30 related ones. There are thousands of new workplaces and tens of billions of budget revenues.