Electricity and heat consumption in buildings accounts for around 60 per cent of emissions in Rome, as well as a significant proportion of air pollution. How can energy efficiency improvements be accelerated, creating benefits for households and businesses?
The answer to this question was addressed at a conference on 3 March 2026, starting with the presentation of two studies carried out as part of Rome Capital’s Climate City Contract, approved by the European Commission on 15 October 2025, as part of the “100 climate-neutral and smart cities” mission, which will be presented on 3 March at a conference at the Roma Urban Center.
The first study, entrusted to Enea, addresses the issue of energy upgrading of the building stock. The results are also interesting in relation to the ongoing debate between the Government and the European Union on the implementation of the European Directive on the energy performance of buildings (EPBD, Energy Performance of Buildings Directive – the so-called ‘green homes’), which requires each country to approve a building stock renovation plan to achieve the planned energy consumption reduction targets (-16% by 2030 and -20/22% by 2035) and to identify the buildings with the lowest performance (55% of the reduction must concern 43% of the worst residential buildings). The directive also stipulates that the measures should focus in particular on supporting vulnerable households, as the aim is to build an energy transition that takes into account the social impact of the measures.
The study presents a detailed analysis of Rome’s building stock, including the number and distribution of properties, surface areas, age of construction, functions and energy systems present. It also presents an analysis of the more than 400,000 energy performance certificates (APE) available, which show that two-thirds of residential properties fall into the worst and most energy-intensive classes (F and G). Also of interest is the unprecedented analysis of the impact of incentives for the energy upgrading of the building stock. Since 2013, over 350,000 projects have been carried out in Rome with the support of various incentive schemes – Ecobonus, Superbonus, Conto Termico, Bonus Casa – with a total estimated investment of over €6.1 billion, which can be associated with total energy savings of over 1 TWh/year and a reduction in CO2 of around 200,000 tonnes per year.
But which properties should be prioritised for intervention? As indicated by the EPBD Directive, attention should be focused on the least efficient buildings and those with the most sensitive social situations, i.e. larger apartment buildings (with at least nine dwellings) built between the Second World War and the 1970s, of which there are over 40,000 with at least 600,000 dwellings. In particular, we need to look at the situation of public housing, not only because of its state of disrepair, but also because a reduction in energy consumption and bills has an immediate and direct effect on the part of the population that needs it most. In Rome, there are 750 priority buildings, with more than 8 dwellings in the worst conditions of energy and building degradation. Cross-referencing this data with Istat maps on the concentration of hardship – using the new IDISE indicator: index of socio-economic hardship of individuals and families – makes it possible to understand which neighbourhoods in Rome should be prioritised for intervention, further reducing the scope of interventions that must become the laboratory of energy innovation in which to apply the energy and social objectives of the European Directives.
The second study, commissioned by AESS, analyses the potential for developing solar photovoltaics in Rome and its capacity to meet energy consumption needs. The study analyses in detail all building roofs, categorising them by type and function, municipalities, excluding areas and buildings subject to restrictions and the most complex situations from a technical point of view. Solar photovoltaics in Rome is growing, as highlighted by recent Areti data on grid-connected systems at the end of 2025 (a total of 398 MW divided among over 34,000 systems). The total potential that can be installed in Rome is over 3.5GW, with a production of 4,400 GWh/year divided between roofs and car park roofs. These systems can produce 48% of the capital’s electricity consumption, with benefits in terms of reduced expenditure for households and businesses and a reduction in CO2 emissions of 1.25 million tonnes per year.
These studies confirm that Rome is the ideal laboratory for exploring these challenges in our country, both in terms of the size of its building stock – over 175,000 residential buildings, with 1,279,000 occupied dwellings – and the variety of building types present and distributed throughout Italy’s largest municipality, which has the highest concentration of public buildings, as well as properties subject to landscape and cultural restrictions.
Building renovation is now one of the most important areas of innovation, bringing together a range of different and highly topical objectives – economic recovery, responding to demand for housing and safety, adapting to climate change, air quality and health – at a delicate juncture in European policy, with significant opportunities for economic and technical support for local authorities under the EPBD directive and the Social Climate Fund. The drafting of national plans required by the Directives can become an opportunity for discussion with all stakeholders in the construction industry, the government and local authorities, and research institutes, in order to find the most effective solutions and test them, starting with the capital.
