Energy-efficiency investments and the concepts of non-energy benefits and investment behaviour

Panel: 6. Business models to improve industrial efficiency, global perspective

This is a peer-reviewed paper.

Author:
Josefine Rasmussen, Linköping University, Department of Management and Engineering, Sweden

Abstract

Despite the attention for energy efficiency today, the industry does not seem to adopt energy-efficient technology to the extent necessary. A reason which has been stressed is that not all benefits are included in the evaluation of energy-related investments, leading to an underestimation of their potential. Previous findings suggest that quantifying non-energy benefits can help showing the financial possibilities of energy-efficient technologies and increase the probability of adopting these investments. However, the literature today lacks a distinct definition of this type of benefits, even though they clearly are of high importance for evaluating investments in energy efficiency. The aim of this paper is thus to define and categorise the benefits related to industrial energy-efficiency investments by reviewing the existing literature within the field, definitions which until now have been scarce in the literature. The paper also aims at covering the investment behaviour for energy-efficiency investments, including evaluation methods and the decision-making process, thereby assessing on what basis investment decisions are made. Closely related to this is the aspect(s) of strategy; there are findings also emphasising the importance of an investment’s strategic character as well as corporate energy strategy for investments in energy efficiency. This paper contributes to the field of industrial energy efficiency in two ways. Firstly, by reviewing the literature on both non-energy benefits and the investment behaviour within the energy field and secondly, by clarifying the concept of non-energy benefits.