Techem Atlas 2026: How Data Supports the Heating Transition in Building Stock

The Techem Atlas for Energy, Heat & Water 2026 went live on October 1, 2026, and shows how energy costs and heat supply in German apartment buildings have changed over the past year. Here is an overview of the key content:

What are the results of the Techem Atlas 2026?
The results show that, despite energy-saving behaviors and more efficient building systems, heating costs remain high. Energy prices in 2025 were roughly on par with the previous year but about 82 percent higher than in 2021. Due to weather conditions, consumption and costs rose again compared to the previous year. At the same time, user behavior and building systems helped offset nearly half of the increase in energy prices since 2021. The consumption-based heating cost billing also contributed to an average reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of 364 kilograms per apartment.

How much can be saved by installing heat pumps in existing buildings?
Heat pumps are demonstrating their potential: In 2025, apartment buildings heated with heat pumps had the lowest heating costs per square meter. While their operating costs have remained roughly stable since 2021, those for district heating rose by 39 percent and those for natural gas by 48 percent. At the same time, it is evident that a large portion of the existing building stock is fundamentally suitable for the use of heat pumps: About 40 percent of heating systems in German apartment buildings are already compatible with low-temperature systems—such as heat pumps—without the need to replace radiators. With appropriate modifications, such as replacing radiators, this share rises to as high as 90 percent. Only in about 10 percent of cases are more extensive modifications required, such as underfloor heating systems or additional insulation.

How does digitalization support more efficient building operations?
Digital infrastructure provides greater transparency regarding energy consumption and system operations. Already, 92.8 percent of metering devices in Europe’s multifamily housing stock can be read without entering the apartment. 81.6 percent of the devices are read entirely remotely.

Heating cost billing is also being further digitized: In 2025, Techem´s Abrechnung direct significantly reduced billing times for approximately 110,000 billing units.

What other opportunities exist for the building stock?
An important aspect is the continued expansion of smart metering. Especially when combined with photovoltaic systems, these create the conditions for precisely measuring and billing locally generated and consumed energy. Furthermore, they lay the groundwork for the intelligent control of decentralized generation and consumption systems. This opens up new possibilities for community-based building energy supply and tenant electricity models, such as those enabled by Techem in collaboration with inexogy through the smart metering solution. In this way, the decentralized use of renewable energy in the building stock can be further advanced.

👉 The combination of devices such as smart meters and heat pumps, along with the collection and use of digital consumption data, offers promising solutions for a sustainable building stock. The geographic variations in consumption metrics can be viewed by energy source on our interactive map of Germany. In the download section, you’ll find the latest data from the 2026 Atlas as well as our historical data sets starting in 2022. You can find the complete Techem Atlas here (Please note that the links provided are in German and referring to the German Atlas. For the Europe Edition please follow this link).

Image caption: For the study, Techem analyzed data from approximately 94,000 buildings containing about 1.1 million apartments in Germany, as well as data from an additional 1.1 million apartments in selected European countries, collected over the past year (Image source: Techem).