Scenario analysis of energy consumption in the German residential building stock for heating and hot water supply was carried out. It focused on how national long-term climate protection targets - a reduction of CO2 emissions by 80%-95% until 2050 - can be reached. Available technologies of energy saving and efficient and renewable energy supply were examined. Special attention was paid to the necessary dynamics, assuming that improving insulation and heat supply of the complete building stock will be a difficult step-by-step process, taking a long period of time. The results show that within the next 10 years (until 2025) continuous progress should be made to achieve a doubling of the annual rates of thermal building modernisation and a completely different structure of newly installed heating systems (moving away from boilers to heat pumps, cogeneration systems and solar systems). In addition, a long-term change of the structure of district heating and electric power generation (used for heat supply) towards a high share of renewable energy by 2050 will play an important role to meet the climate protection targets. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.