Energy efficiency opportunities of the buildings built with industrialized technology in Central Europe

There is an urgent need nowadays to reduce current levels of GHGs emissions. On the other hand the EU countries largely dependent on energy imports are vulnerable to disruption in energy supply which may in turn threaten functioning of their current economic structure. The EU imported 54% of its energy sources in 2006 and was projected to increase even further by 2030. Reducing its import dependency EU is one of the main goals of the 20-20 by 2020 target - this legislative package is believed to reduce the expected imports of energy by 26% compared to the development before the 20-20 initiative. One of the most important environmental problems is the energy consumption of the buildings. The current paper shows that buildings can deliver large energy and CO₂ emission reductions at low costs. The directives and the methods of the energy certification of the buildings spread across Europe. Only 1-2% part of the building stock is exchanged every year, so it is very important to increase the energy efficiency of the existing buildings, too. Present paper focuses on the buildings built with industrialized technology only. Up till now the Central European support programs concentrated most financial resources on buildings built with prefabricated technology. For the follow-up programs the question has been posed: Is it really the most energy consuming building sector among residential buildings?