Renewable energy overtakes gas for heating new buildings in Germany.

BERLIN, June 6 (Xinhua) -- Two thirds of newly constructed buildings in Germany were partly heated with renewable energies such as geothermal energy, solar heat, wood or biogas in 2018, according to official figures published by the German Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) on Thursday.

In nearly half of the 107,200 new buildings in Germany, renewable energy even was the biggest energy source for heating and replaced gas from the first place for energy sources for heating for the first time, Destatis announced.

Environmental thermal energy which is extracting heat from the air or water was particularly popular as a renewable energy source for heating newly constructed buildings in Germany.

Over 70 percent of buildings primarily heated with renewables would use this energy source, followed by geothermal energy, at 16.1 percent.

The share of buildings heated primarily with gas fell from 47.4 percent in 2017 to 43.0 percent in 2018, according to the German statistical office.

For district heating, oil or electricity accounted for 9.8 percent in terms of heating newly constructed buildings, marking a slight increase of 0.5 percent.

   7 June 2019