Table of Contents
The advantages of the EPC
As evident from the 2025 ENEA’s EPC report, the distribution of the EPCs in Italy grows year by year. In 2024, the reference year for the analysis, the EPCs issued, verified, and entered into SIAPE, the Information System on Energy Performance Certificates, totalled 1.2 million, +8% compared to 2023. Despite the growing number, the use of this tool is still very limited, considering the totality of Italy’s real estate assets.
Yet, widespread use of the EPC would allow for a more complete and accurate picture of the state of Italian buildings and their energy performance. If fully exploited, the EPC acts as an activator of informed choices for the real estate market, is a key asset for accessing incentives, facilitates dialogue between professionals and clients, and helps make targeted decisions.
The EPC as a pivot for the future of the real estate sector
To achieve substantial distribution, however, the report proposes an expansion of cases and mandatory requirements. Increasing the cases would, in fact, also help achieve the objectives of the new EPBD IV of 2024, currently being transposed in Italy.
The EPC is at the centre of the new version as an essential tool for new uses and purposes, such as the Building Passport, the Digital Building Logbook, integration with the new Smart Readiness Indicator to assess building intelligence, and, finally, at the regulatory level, in anticipation of the obligation for Member States to draft energy renovation plans in 2026.
This highlights the importance of collecting data from our buildings in an increasingly substantial manner, but also in digitalised form with interoperability characteristics, to promote exchange and widespread use of these data for multiple functions. To do this, however, a common effort is needed toward overcoming the current regional fragmentation of the various EPC systems and registries, which undermines the effectiveness and reliability of the collected data.
What the data tell us: energy classes of Italian properties are improving
Of the 1.2 million EPCs issued in 2024, 88.7% are for residential use, while 11.3% for non-residential, divided according to use destinations: commerce 40%, offices 26%, industries 19%.
Regarding energy classes, there is a slight improvement in energy classes compared to 2023. In particular, classes F-G decrease (although they remain the most substantial at 44%), and classes C-E increase by +2%. Classes A4-B, however, remain stable at 20%.
Looking specifically at the non-residential sector, compared to 2023, there is a significant decrease in energy classes F-G of almost 10%, thus stopping at 30% of EPCs and therefore an improvement in both classes C-E (49.7%, +5.8%) and classes A4-B (20%, +4.2%). It should be noted that class A4 is closely linked to the presence of renewable sources in the building.
Construction period
Data in hand, the Italian real estate stock remains particularly old, with 76% of buildings constructed before Law 10/1991. Only 6.1% date their construction to the 2016-2024 period, with new constructions in 2024 at 3.7%.
Despite this, a positive trend of performance improvement should be noted even for pre-1991 buildings. The improvement in EPCs follows the regulatory evolution of Law 10/1991, Legislative Decree 192/2005, and Ministerial Decree 26/07/2015 with increasingly stringent objectives.
Property transfers and rental certificates still dominate the market
Despite the progressive improvement in energy performance, EPC issuance continues to be strongly driven by obligations related to real estate market dynamics. Property transfers and rentals still represent the main reason for certificate issuance and often concern existing properties with medium-low energy performance and limited integration of renewable sources.
Conversely, EPCs associated with energy renovation interventions and major renovations are in slight decline, a signal that reflects the impact of the slowdown in public incentives on this type of operation. This imbalance highlights how the EPC is today used primarily as a formal and documentary tool, rather than as a strategic lever to accompany energy improvement interventions.
The real estate market: EPC increasingly relevant in purchasing decisions
Nevertheless, energy efficiency is increasingly influencing the real estate market. For example, from the Italian ENEA report, it emerges that:
- New constructions or renovated buildings retain greater economic value over time, even by 44% and more
- Perception of the importance of energy quality is higher among buyers than sellers (69% vs 55% of sellers) but growing for both categories compared to 2023
- For 66% of buyers, the EPC helps guide purchases
- nZEB buildings are gaining interest among buyers (35%)
Financing renovation: a barrier to overcome
In light of these findings, it is therefore important for agents to improve the sector’s ability to adequately reflect the added value of an efficient home. Greater general awareness can also facilitate overcoming the cultural barriers of financial operators in providing access to credit for renovation and energy refurbishment.
As is evident from agents’ experience and from the questionnaire submitted to condominium administrators conducted in the report, the obstacles that owners and prospective buyers encounter in buying or refurbishing their property mainly concern the financial aspect.
Poor perception of savings compared to the cost of refurbishment and regulatory uncertainty and discontinuous incentives are other obstacles reported for starting refurbishment work. Finally, many professionals in the sector and non-technical users have difficulty understanding some IT tools. It therefore becomes essential for operators to seek solutions to improve understanding and facilitate a simpler process for the EPC.
Facilitating the EPC and SRI process: SmarterEPC
Standardising processes and data acquisition for the EPC and SRI, therefore, becomes essential in our country, but also in Europe, to improve the sector and enhance the real estate market.
Moreover, the arrival of the new Smart Readiness Indicator certainly presents another challenge in terms of new approaches, implementation, and promotion to users.
To facilitate understanding of the EPC, make it more digital, and already anticipate integration with the SRI assessment, the SmarterEPC project aims to streamline and standardise the EPC and SRI, starting from on-site data collection.
The project proposes new methodologies for the audit phase and a hub that enables the production of both EPC and SRI separately or integrated, which is uniform at the European level with software developed by other research projects aligned with ISO 52000 standards and the provisions outlined in the new EPBD IV.
To promote the use and knowledge of these two assessments, the project also works on support for professionals and institutions to train on the new digital EPC and SRI independently, free of charge, and certified.
