European Student Think Tank

Energy effi­ciency is the least expens­ive altern­at­ive to lower our energy con­sump­tion. It builds on the idea that we can invent our way out of an approach­ing energy crisis and that people can be com­pelled into tak­ing the “right” decisions. While doing it we cre­ate jobs, stay com­pet­it­ive and cre­ate loads of other co-benefits.

In European policy mak­ing there is a range of tools and tar­gets to sup­port energy effi­ciency. The most vis­ible is the 20% energy effi­ciency gains by 2020 tar­get set in 2007. There is also an impress­ive body of legis­la­tion, for example dir­ect­ives and strategies on energy labelling, green pub­lic pro­cure­ment and eco-design. Together, they form a policy frame­work which aims to encour­age people to buy energy effi­cient products while pun­ish­ing bad per­form­ing ones.

The prob­lems with energy effi­ciency how­ever are many. The Com­mis­sion has already estab­lished that we’re far off our tra­ject­ory if we want to reach the 2020 tar­get. And policies in place seem to lack sharp edges.

Smart meters for stu­pid people?

A telling tale of the prob­lem­atique sur­round­ing energy effi­ciency policy is the massive roll-out of smart-meters. A smart-meter is a gad­get which allows a house owner to mon­itor the building’s energy con­sump­tion in real time. More inform­a­tion should lead to more aware­ness and encour­age con­sumers to be more eco­nom­ical in their energy use. More con­scious energy con­sump­tions could poten­tially shave hun­dreds of Euros off energy bills. Inter­est­ingly enough, energy com­pan­ies are eager to par­ti­cip­ate. The install­a­tion of smart-meters in European homes has been impress­ively decis­ive, pen­et­rat­ing over 50% of some mar­kets. The UK is one of the fore­run­ners and set a goal to have smart-meters in all homes by 2020.

The suc­cess of the meters how­ever is very unclear. Industry tests show some improve­ments with mostly single digit per­cent­ages gained in sav­ings. Also, con­sumers have com­plained about costs being passed on to their bills for installing the meters. One thing has become pain­fully clear: just installing the meter is not enough. You need extens­ive inform­a­tion cam­paigns for people to inter­n­al­ise the bene­fits of doing their laun­dry in the middle of the night. Tech­no­logy alone is not enough to gen­er­ate beha­vi­oural change. 

Are we really sav­ing energy?

The Break­through Insti­tute, an Amer­ican think-thank, goes even fur­ther in its cri­tique. It recently released a report on Rebound Effects. The idea is that energy sav­ings decrease costs for energy which drives con­sumers to find new ways to use energy. The end res­ult is that effi­ciency meas­ures lead to more energy use and not less. It is an eco­nom­ist per­spect­ive though and one could ask, if you have a car which uses less gas­ol­ine per kilo­metre will you then drive it more?

A no-brainer

Des­pite the com­plex­it­ies and dilem­mas con­front­ing policy makers when try­ing to improve energy effi­ciency, the bot­tom line is that it is a no-brainer. With just a few simple actions we could put European energy use on a fast-track to sustainability.

Energy effi­ciency is obvi­ously a no-brainer but people need edu­ca­tion and incent­ives to act. To increase cit­izen aware­ness on cli­mate change, the Com­mis­sion ran a cam­paign called Change. Under the man­tra Take control! they gave some simple advice on how indi­vidu­als can con­trib­ute to com­bat cli­mate change. Put down the ther­mo­stat, install double glass win­dows, don’t leave the TV on stand-by etc. Focus­ing on build­ings and house­holds is not bad con­sid­er­ing that over 40% of the EU’s energy use goes into this segment.

By small actions we tackle cli­mate change, reduce energy depend­ency, lower elec­tri­city and gas bills, cre­ate health­ier liv­ing spaces and foster innov­a­tion. In the end how­ever, energy effi­ciency shares the same fun­da­mental part of all envir­on­mental policy prob­lems: How do we make people con­sider the con­sequences of their actions?

Related posts:

1. SG Energy: sum­mary of the first week­end (17-19 June)
   June 30th, 2011
2. The Obstacles in the Cre­ation of a Com­mon EU Energy Policy
   March 5th, 2013
3. The power of the Atom: nuc­lear energy and the les­sons from Fukushima
   March 28th, 2011
4. Suc­cess or fail­ure? Les­son learned on cli­mate change
   Decem­ber 8th, 2010
5. Shale gas I: The future of shale gas in Europe
   May 17th, 2011