Enigin Update - Little More than Evens on EU Reaching Energy Efficiency Target
THE European Union’s (EU) chances of meeting its objective of reducing energy consumption by 20 percent by 2020 are little more than even, the EU's top energy official has told EurActiv.
EurActiv asked Philip Lowe, the European Commission’s director general for energy how confident he was that the target could be achieved, he replied: “On present progress, 60 percent!”
Previous to the publication of the current EU energy policies, the bloc was only half way to meeting their energy use target, Lowe said. Hence, the recently proposed legislation did not consider that the 20 percent target as measured against 2005 levels would be met.
EurActiv claims to have seen an impact assessment accompanying the Energy Roadmap for 2050, and they claim it says “that the EU “is far from reaching its 20 percent objective” on energy efficiency.”
They also report that the report also “Pinpoints "split incentives" or "principal agent market failures", where energy decision-makers are detached from price signals, as a problem. For example, landlords can decide whether to renovate buildings, but since tenants pay the energy bills, owners have little incentive to invest in energy-saving measures.”
In the assessment’s ‘reference scenario’ for business as usual, “the indicative 20 percent energy savings objective for 2020 would not be achieved under current policies – not even by 2050.”
Lowe explained: “The fact we didn’t take this [20 percent figure] into account in our scenarios was precisely because we wanted to establish the level of ambition necessary in order to meet the 2050 objectives as well as the 2020 objectives.
“In practice, we see in all scenarios the need for at least 30 percent if not 40 percent improvement in energy efficiency compared with the 2005 and 2007 bubbles and not simply 20 percent.”
Earlier in the year, Marie Donnelly, the EU’s director of renewables and energy efficiency innovation, estimated that the EU had so far only achieved energy consumption reductions of between 9 percent and 11 percent.
Enigin Distributors across the EU know how much interest there is from the private and public sectors in improving energy efficiency, reducing costs and CO2 emissions. As exclusive distributors of Enigin plc's effective systems, including EnergyMaps, Enigin Distributors are helping their clients to reduce energy consumption across Europe.
Picture of EU Flag by Open Democracy reproduced under CCL.
