Clean, affordable energy must be at the heart of every home.
The EU’s Affordable Housing Plan published yesterday contains some great steps for the switch to clean heat:
✅ It considers ‘affordability’ also in terms of energy costs, which positions energy efficient heat pumps as part of the solution: “homes that are cheap to buy but expensive to heat or cool are not affordable in practice.”
✅ It states that affordability should not harm sustainability, which means heat pumps will be core to such housing: “increasing the affordability of housing should not come at the expense of sustainability, including resilience, or quality.”
✅ It says energy bills & taxes must be addressed (and the EU Commission will do so via a citizens’ energy package in 2026), making efficient solutions like electric heat pumps central: “every euro spent on energy efficiency in housing translates into twelve euros in energy savings”.
✅ It refers to new funding models via private & public money (and the EU Commission will create a new investment platform for this), which will help scale up clean heat.
✅ It will relax State aid rules for affordable housing, making it easier to invest in energy efficient homes.
Now, the European Commission must take forward all the foreseen initiatives and EU Member States must implement the recommendations made in the plan.
