The point is that in some situations it can be more cost effective to generate additional energy than implement energy saving measures such as insulation improvements. My house was built in the 1600's it's very difficult to insulate properly.
Real Question: I see posts like this often on HN. Why not tear down these houses and rebuild with energy efficient ones? I know... blah. blah. blah. historical this and that... but do you want to suffer from 40+C summers? This is the price of history! Think about it. Really really! Please start tearing down these horribly inefficient houses that are "historical". We already do it for office buildings!
The issue is that it's ridiculously expensive. You have to pay an inflated price for an existing, perfectly fine home. Then you have to pay to have it demolished. Then you have to pay to build a brand new home. It's going to cost >2x what the resulting home is actually worth.
When the old homes decay to the point that they need to be torn down, then they will be. But destroying perfectly good houses is just too expensive in this market.
