What have we learnt and what have we missed?

Panel: 2. Policy innovations to ensure, scale and sustain action

This is a peer-reviewed paper.

Author:
Hans Nilsson, FourFact AB, Sweden

Abstract

Some 15 years ago (2007) the eceee started a session called “The foundations of a future energy policy. Longer term strategies” with the ambition to see if our work with eceee summer studies could serve as a sort of crystal bowl for the future. This session has been repeated throughout the years even if the name and number has changed slightly. The ambition remains.

Have we managed to discover trends, have we managed to enhance knowledge about energy efficiency policies to a higher degree, are we capable of predicting and guide future policies? Or are we still walking in the dark?

This paper will browse through the past 7 sessions (2007-2019) and check if there are any patterns that could reasonably be seen as a sort of “distillation” of knowledge. I will be looking at the challenges the authors have tried to meet and to which audiences they have been addressed. There will be a comparison with the general trend for energy efficiency on a global scale, in particular by use of the IEA energy efficiency reports, but also the EU ambitions to make energy efficiency “the first fuel”.

We have no doubt managed to discover a lot about the nature of the work to improve energy efficiency by gathering experiences from across the globe. Extracting, comparing and analysing attempts to make policies work and the work better seems successful. But what impact have these discoveries had?

It is obvious that something must be done. The IEA reports show that energy efficiency worldwide is shrinking rather than improving. We have learnt a great deal, but maybe about the wrong thing? Or is it just so that we are not good enough to tell the story about what we have learnt?

I will attempt to trace indications of what we could have overseen or lost.

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