“The craft is ready. We want to do things. We need planning certainty”
The German Confederation of Skilled Crafts (ZDH) is optimistic that it will be able to manage the planned installation of additional heat pumps. The President of the Central Association, Jörg Dittrich, explains the upcoming challenge at WELT.
The heat transition is correct, but the implementation unsettles people: The German Association of Towns and Municipalities is dissatisfied with the approach of Economics Minister Robert Habeck. Union faction vice Jens Spahn calls for a comprehensive heat pump support program.
Dhe German Association of Towns and Municipalities (DStGB) has criticized the draft law by Economics Minister Robert Habeck (Greens) to gradually phase out gas and oil heating as “unrealistic”. The heat transition is necessary to achieve the climate protection goals and the direction is right, said Managing Director Gerd Landsberg of the “Neuen Osnabrücker Zeitung“. “But unfortunately that is not supported by realistic numbers,” said Landsberg.
In addition, there is no exact determination of the sum of the affected buildings, the craft capacities and the costs. Without a corresponding analysis, however, politics will “only unsettle people when in doubt,” said the DStGB chief executive. He warned of a decreasing commitment to climate protection among the population as a result of the specifications.
With the compromise of the traffic light coalition on the long-controversial building energy law, the end of oil and gas heating comes in Germany. From 2024, every newly installed heating system should be operated with 65 percent renewable energy. According to a draft law published on Monday, the Ministry of Economic Affairs expects more than nine billion euros a year to be spent on new heating systems by 2028. According to the draft, this would be offset by savings of around 11 billion euros over an operating time of the heating system of 18 years.
Landsberg argued that there are more than 30 million apartments and houses in Germany that are heated with gas or oil. In addition, the majority of the more than 180,000 municipal buildings, including schools, administration buildings and sports halls, are heated with gas or oil. At the same time, the sanitary trade is signaling that the necessary rapid build-up of specialist staff cannot be achieved in the short or medium term. He pointed out that in the case of a large number of old buildings, “unfortunately, simply replacing the heating is not enough” and that an overall energetic renovation is necessary.
Landsberg also criticized the planned exemptions for people over 80 years of age. These are “constitutionally” questionable. “Around 78 or 79-year-old homeowner could rightly claim objectively unjustified unequal treatment,” said the DStGB manager.
Spahn calls for a comprehensive funding program for heating replacement
Union faction Vice Jens Spahn (CDU) meanwhile called for comprehensive heat pump funding. Funding is needed that not only focuses on acquisition and installation costs, but also on the insulation, Spahn told the “Redaktionsnetzwerk Deutschland”. “You have to refurbish the building, you may have to replace radiators, remodel rooms. It’s not just about the purchase costs for the heat pump.”
The CDU politician is pushing for low-bureaucracy funding. He fears that an income-related subsidy program “again becomes bureaucratic, lengthy, slow”. In such areas, there is the principle that the property and the conversion measures are funded regardless of income. He has nothing against social differentiation per se, but it must be “unbureaucratic”.
Spahn also criticized the actions of the governing coalition of SPD, Greens and FDP. “A few months before something comes into force, having so many unanswered questions leads to uncertainty and chaos,” he warned, with a view to unanswered questions about what the exchange costs the individual and who gets what funding under what conditions.
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