Germany’s draft heating rules face widespread criticism in parliamentary hearing
Clean Energy Wire
A wide range of experts have heavily criticised the German government’s planned law on heating decarbonisation at a parliamentary hearing. Representatives from the heating industry, tenant and homeowner associations, local utilities and other stakeholders said the Building Modernisation Act (BMA) is too bureaucratic, carries substantial risks for consumers, and might undermine constitutionally protected climate targets. The government plans to pass the law that is supposed to put an end to a protracted dispute around clean heating before the beginning of parliament’s summer recess on 10 July.
The new BMA was proposed by the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) of chancellor Friedrich Merz together with its junior coalition partners, the Social Democrats (SPD). The CDU promised to “abolish” the previous government’s legislation for decarbonising heating during the early-2025 election campaign. The new law drops the previous mandatory 65 percent renewable energy share for new heating installations, permitting homeowners to install oil and gas boilers going forward. A green fuel quota is supposed to prescribe a gradually increasing share of bioenergy in heating networks to make fossil-run boilers climate neutral.
The head of plumbing and heating industry association ZVSHK, Michael Hilpert, said many companies in the sector were grappling with uncertainty about the new rules. While he welcomed keeping all technologies available, Hilpert stressed that fossil heating systems would in future be subject to tight regulation to introduce the green fuel quota. “This creates new uncertainties for homeowners, businesses and consumers,” he argued. Markus Staudt, head of heating industry association BDH also warned that certification and documentation rules would be too prescriptive, arguing this could stifle investments.
The deputy head of local utility association VKU, Kai Roger Lobo, also warned against the bureaucratic burden, urging the government to find more “practical” rules to support the long-term heating transition. The general framework “must not be changed completely every couple of years” to allow for adequate infrastructure planning, he added. Eva Bode, a climate and energy policy expert from the German Association of Towns and Municipalities, said allowing open technology choice for new heating systems would undermine “a basic requirement” for municipal heating planning. Scrapping the mandatory renewable energy share had not been supplemented by measures connecting individual heating system choices to municipal heating planning, she argued.
Florian Becker, director of the German Tenant Association, said the planned BMA carries substantial risks for tenants. He called for landlords to bear full responsibility for the CO2 price when installing new fossil heating systems. Kai Warnecke of homeowner association Haus und Grund said the changes to tenancy laws and the splitting of carbon pricing costs would bring “enormous uncertainties.”
Frederick Moch of trade union federation DGB said the planned law would “do a disservice to the gradual and socially acceptable transformation of heating towards climate neutrality” by causing widespread confusion. Relying on bioenergy to decarbonise the sector would not only come with significant uncertainty over future costs but also pit heating against sectors where alternatives for climate neutral operation are harder to find, he said.
Attorney Remo Klinger, who has represented environmental NGO DUH in multiple cases, said the BMA would violate constitutional principles and European law by undermining climate neutrality targets. DUH earlier this week said it would seek legal action against the BMA.
A legal opinion by parliament’s scientific expert service published last week found that the new law may run counter to the constitutional obligation on government to ensure progressive climate action through concrete measures. The opinion, commissioned by the Green Party, came after CDU members of parliament warned that the BMA could face a court challenge.