3. Conclusion

The building sector contributes 43% of national final energy consumption and 23% of CO ₂ emissions (key building figures – ADEME 2006); two-thirds of this consumption comes from heating.

To limit the impact of these contributions, France has pledged to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by a factor of four by 2050, with a particular focus on the transport and building sectors. Against this backdrop, improving the energy performance of buildings has become essential, both for new construction and for existing buildings, whose thermal performance will have to be equivalent to that of the best existing buildings by 2050. Massive use of renewable energies (solar or biomass energy, geothermal energy, etc.) is probably one of the best ways of achieving these targets, and the use of surface geothermal techniques is an interesting...