Climate-friendly housing - but how to cope with the costs? A survey of 3,000 households conducted in Germany in late 2025 reveals that nearly three fourths of the residents are expecting significantly higher energy costs and 65 percent believe that they have little or no financial leeway for energy upgrades. The findings from the EU project PREFIGURE, coordinated by the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), show how concerns about energy costs are related to financial pressure and options for action. According to the researchers, socially tiered funding models and greater tenant participation would be helpful.
75 percent of the interviewed tenants believe that climate-friendly renovations are somewhat or definitely unaffordable. The percentage among apartment or home owners is 55 percent. What is more, tenants often have no say: Of the 1,226 tenants with energetic measures already planned or performed, roughly 78 percent stated that they were hardly involved in the decisions or not at all.
"The evaluation of the German data set shows that concerns over increasing energy costs are not only associated with the need for renovation of a building or with the current accommodation costs," says Professor Michael Janoschka, Head of KIT's Institute for Regional Science, who coordinates the project. "The options available to tenants and home owners, their knowledge of renewable technologies, and their socioeconomic situation are equally relevant factors."
Heavy Burden, Strong Concerns
To compare energy costs, the researchers devised a "concern indicator" combining three different estimations: Participants see the energy prices they have to pay as unfair, they expect significantly increasing energy costs, and they consider climate-friendly renovations as non-affordable. Anyone who agrees to at least two of them belongs to the group of people with high energy cost concerns.
This applies to 63 percent of those surveyed. In the group with an energy cost burden of at least 15 percent of the household net income, the value amounts to 79 percent, if the burden is below 5 percent, the result is 56 percent. For single parents, the percentage is 75 percent.
Energy cost concerns are less widespread among people who are more familiar with renewable energy technologies. The same applies to interviewed persons who stated that they would commit themselves strongly to collective energy transition measures. It remains open if exactly this knowledge and attitudes alleviate the concerns or if the differences have to be attributed to other circumstances.
Making Funding Accessible
The project team recommends reliable funding graded by social status using straightforward procedures and low pre-financing barriers. From the researcher's view, tenants need effective options for participation; renovations should remain affordable for them. "Whoever has little money must be eligible for funding without making high advance payments. And tenants must have a say. Both conditions are part of a socially fair energy transition," says Dennis Hof from the Federal Institute for Research on Building, Urban Affairs and Spatial Development (BBSR), who coordinated the German PREFIGURE survey.
PREFIGURE also investigates local solution approaches: The Bulgarian "CODE Housing Microloans" program, for example, offers low-income households interest-free microloans for repairs and energy efficiency measures, complemented by counseling and workshops.
Data Basis and Next Steps
The survey was conducted on the Dynata market research platform in seven countries altogether - Germany, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, the Netherlands, and Spain. The evaluation of the German sample was under the leadership of the BBSR. Initial observations, which require an in-depth analysis, reveal significant differences across countries in the perceived fairness of energy costs, while showing a general willingness in many places to participate in the energy transition.
The aim of the PREFIGURE Horizon Europe project is to show ways for making energy upgrades compatible with affordable housing and social participation. For this purpose, it combines household surveys with local case studies in eleven European cities, among them Karlsruhe.
The overall coordination of the project lies with KIT's Institute for Regional Science, which also coordinates the comparative analysis of the surveys. KIT's Institute for Technology Assessment and Systems Analysis takes part in the case studies conducted in Thessaloniki.
For early 2027, the PREFIGURE team plans to publish a dossier containing in-depth statistical analyses and comparisons on the European level. Until the completion of the project by the end of March 2027, the insights gained will be incorporated into recommendations for action and be discussed with policymakers, the housing industry, and civil society.
More information on the PREFIGURE project
Specialist publication on the results of the PREFIGURE survey in Germany (in German only)
