A Preliminary Analysis of the Dutch Voluntary on Energy Efficiency Improvement

Ewald Korevaar, Jacco Farla, Kornelis Blok, and Kaat Schulte Fischedick, Dept. of Science, Technology and Society, Utrecht University, The Netherlands

Abstract

Voluntary agreements seems very successful in Dutch energy policy. An evaluation of this success story.

In this paper we make an interim analysis of the Dutch voluntary agreements, one of the most important policy instruments of the Dutch government for reaching energy efficiency improvements in the manufacturing industry. These agreements are concluded with 18 branches of the manufacturing industry and have mostly a goal set of 20% energy efficiency improvement between 1989 and 2000. The evaluation is done according to the concepts goal achievement and effectiveness. Further we will try to determine which sort of barriers will be influenced mostly by the voluntary agreements.

We conclude that it is very well possible that the goals of the voluntary agreements will be more or less met by the year 2000. We warn, however, for the possibility that even in the case that the goals are met, the real effect on energy efficiency and primary energy consumption may be smaller than expected.

About the effectiveness of the voluntary agreements we conclude that when the only barriers for further energy efficiency improvements were economic barriers an energy efficiency improvement of 20% would to a large extent also be achieved without the voluntary agreements. A preliminary conclusion is that the voluntary agreements mostly influence the non-economic barriers. More in-depth research is required to determine the character and magnitude of these non-economic barriers.