Gas heating will be banned in new homes from summer 2021...

New building: gas companies fear “the return of compulsory electric heating” (© RI Pixabay)

The new RE 2020 environmental regulations will ban gas in new homes from 2021. A ban that will affect new collective housing after 2024.

It is soon the end of gas in new housing. The government is preparing to unveil its arbitrations in this area. According to information from Echos, the 2020 environmental regulations “will mark a major breakthrough: the gradual disappearance of new gas-heated housing”.

The new RE 2020 environmental regulations, which impose new thresholds for energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions on buildings, will apply from summer 2021 to housing, offices and educational buildings. Single-family homes whose building permit application has been submitted subsequently will be affected. For collective housing, where alternatives to gas are not yet well developed, a tolerance is granted until 2024.

The maximum authorized emission threshold will be set from 2021 at 4 kilograms (kg) of CO2 / year / m2 for houses, and for apartments at 14 kg CO2 / m2, say the echoes. “From 2024, this threshold will be reduced to 6 kg CO2 / m2 / year, effectively excluding heating exclusively with gas, but allowing the development of innovative solutions, including hybrids (such as heat pumps using a slight back-up of gas in very cold) “, specifies the Ministry of Ecological Transition on a daily basis.

Risk of electric heating returning?

A big blow for some professionals. Thus, the boss of the gas transport network GRTGaz says he fears the resurgence of electric heating in new buildings, while Thierry Found, CEO of GRTgaz, one of the two operators of the gas transport network in France with Teréga says he fears “the return of compulsory electric heating for all”.

>> BFM Immo partnership: up to € 4,000 bonus for renovation work on your home with the Auchan Eco Energie Premium

“Electric heat pumps are interesting solutions” but, “behind the procession of heat pumps, there are also electric heaters and, depending on the setting of a certain number of coefficients, we risk having the return of the electric heater “, underlines Thierry Found. “The fear is that in the coming winters we will have a peak (of consumption) whose size will have increased and an electricity system that is ever more fragile due to the development of renewables, the closure of a certain number of nuclear units. , of their aging “, he continues.

Maximum consumption threshold

“It suffices that there is a crisis of one kind or another and, all of a sudden, the electrical system and therefore the energy system becomes very fragile”, he insists. He thus alludes to recent warnings from the RTE electricity network manager: France could experience electricity supply difficulties in the event of a cold snap in February, the health crisis having disrupted the maintenance of nuclear reactors.

The ministry specifies Echos that “the government wishes to avoid causing a massive return of the electric heater, because although it is inexpensive to install, this heating method is expensive to use and weighs more heavily on the electricity network at the height of the winter (winter peak) This is why RE 2020 will impose the use of renewable heat by setting a ceiling for non-renewable primary energy consumption.

(With AFP)