MINSK, 19 September (BelTA) – The share of energy-effective homes in new construction will go up to 50% by 2021, BelTA learned from Head of the Production Technology Department of the Energy Effectiveness Department of the State Standardization Committee of Belarus Aleksandr Danilenko.
According to the source, by 2021 up to 50% of the new construction has to use energy-effective designs in line with the government program on housing construction for 2016-2020.
The housing available in Belarus stands at 254.4 million m2, including 178 million m2 as multifamily dwellings. Housing and utilities industry is one of the largest consumers of fuel and energy resources today. The industry consumes about 1.7 million tonnes of reference fuel and over 23.6% of the total amount of electricity the country uses.
In 2018 Belarusians used 62.4 million Gcal of heat energy, spending 23.4 million Gcal (37.5%) on heating and hot water. Taking into account how much heat energy is consumed and the current recovery of the cost from households, the state subsidies on generating heat energy are close to $745 million per annum.
Most of the residential buildings in Belarus were built before 1996. Such homes have very poor heat insulation and consume 2-2.8 times more heat energy than new energy-effective construction.
