Superbonus: EU Court of Auditors criticises Italy over inefficient use of EU funds
When compared with the measures adopted in Belgium, Lithuania and Cyprus, the judges described it as economically unviable
The superbonus is not a cost-effective measure. This has been established by the European Court of Auditors in its report ‘Improving the energy efficiency of private homes with the RRF’, which compares the measures adopted in Belgium, Italia, Lithuania and Cyprus to improve energy efficiency of private homes using funds from the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF).
According to the report, the superbonus is ‘by far’ the most expensive and least efficient (cost-effective) measure among those examined: 10 euros to improve the energy efficiency of a residential building by 1 kWh. Furthermore, the possibility of having up to 110 per cent of renovation costs covered, according to the EU Court of Auditors, represents an inefficient use of the European funds that have helped to finance the superbonus. Of the 36.3 billion made available by the EU for medium-scale renovations, 43 per cent is earmarked for Italia. The European Commission had stipulated that, for a project to be considered medium-scale, the renovation must result in energy savings of at least 30 per cent.
Of the countries considered, Italia is the one that has applied the strictest rule: every refurbishment funded by the RRF must, in fact, result in a minimum energy saving of 40 per cent. As for the tool used to estimate energy savings, energy performance certificates, according to the Court of Auditors, are not sufficiently reliable or comparable.
Types of renovation
Overall, in the four Member States examined, deep refurbishments – which enable energy savings of more than 60 per cent – were found to be in the minority. In response to the Court of Auditors, following the presentation of the results, the European Commission clarified that the RRF Regulation ‘did not require Member States to include such measures in their national recovery and resilience plans’. In fact, the focus was mainly on simple measures, such as the installation of solar panels or the replacement of windows.
According to the EU Court of Auditors, the risk is that funding will be provided for measures that do not substantially improve the energy performance of buildings. According to the Court, this approach gives rise to two main problems: firstly, there is a risk of the performance of the buildings themselves being stuck at low levels for years, hindering more effective measures. Secondly, these investments are not entirely compatible with the aims decarbonisation in the long term.
