Energy efficiency directive 3.0: Can “metered savings” approaches support EU’s Renovation Wave objectives?

Panel: 4. Monitoring and evaluation for a wise, just and inclusive transition

This is a peer-reviewed paper.

Author:
Marion Santini

Abstract

In its 2030 Climate Target Plan, the European Commission stressed that additional cuts in energy consumption are needed to reach more ambitious climate goals. The Commission’s analysis includes significant greenhouse gas emission cuts in the building sector. This priority is also reflected in the Commission’s “Renovation Wave” initiative.

These expectations should be put in perspective with the recent slowdown of energy efficiency improvements in the EU and the worrying lack of progress in reducing energy consumption from space heating (Thomas & Rosenow, 2020). For these reasons, building policy will be one of the main focuses of the revision of the EU’s climate and energy legislation, starting in 2021.

This paper highlights what adopting these increased climate goals means for building policy. It zooms in on one policy tool, the energy savings obligation, part of Article 7 of the Energy Efficiency Directive. It identifies synergies and trade-offs between this provision and renovation objectives. It reviews the existing literature on Article 7, with a focus on issues related to measurement, verification and evaluation of energy savings.

The paper explores the prospects that the use of “metered savings” methodologies offer to improve the reliability of energy savings estimates. In the EU, these approaches have been mainly used to support energy savings in the industrial sector. In the U.S., regulators and utilities are piloting the use of these methodologies, combined with pay-for-performance financing schemes in the building sector (SENSEI, 2020). The paper discusses the opportunities and limits of using these methodologies to achieve both EED and Renovation Wave objectives, in order to draw lessons for the revision of climate and energy legislation in 2021.

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