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Overview of Standardization of Energy Efficiency
Franco Bua and Angelo Baggini
Since the oil shocks of the 1970s, many countries worldwide have promoted energy efficiency improvements across all sectors of their economies. As a result of these policies and structural changes in their economies, these countries have been able to decouple primary energy use from economic growth.
The rate of decline in energy intensity has not remained constant over time; in most countries the rate of decline tended to be higher from 1970 to 19901.
The International Energy Agency (IEA) reports that the oil price shocks of the 1970s and the resulting energy policies have apparently been more effective in controlling the growth in energy demand and CO2 emissions than the energy efficiency and climate policies implemented in the 1990s2.
However, since the early 2000s, the rate of improvement in energy intensity has tended to increase, possibly in association with the increase in energy prices and greater attention to climate change issues.
It goes without saying that, these days, improving energy efficiency has become a priority in the political agenda of all countries, being key to addressing energy security and both environmental and economic challenges.
In order to support governments with their implementation of energy efficiency, many organizations have worked out a broad range of recommendations and proposed actions for well identified priority areas3. Each country would select the policies that best suit its efficiency commitment as well as its unique economic, social and political situation.
A classification of these policy options and measures4 is given by the World Energy Council5 as follows:
- Institutions and programmes
- Institutions: agencies (national, regional and local), Ministry department
- National programmes of energy efficiency with quantitative targets and laws
- Regulatory measures
- Minimum efficiency standards and labels for electrical appliances (e.g. refrigerators, washing machines, AC, lamps, water heaters, motors), cars and buildings (new and existing)
- Other regulations for designated consumers: mandatory energy managers, mandatory energy consumption reporting, mandatory energy saving and mandatory maintenance
- Obligation of energy savings for energy companies at consumersā premises
- Financial and fiscal measures
- Subsidies for audits by sector (industry, commercial, public, households, low income households transport)
- Subsidies or soft loans (i.e. loans with subsidised interest rates) for energy efficiency investment and equipment by sector
- Fiscal measures
- Tax credit
- Accelerate depreciation
- Tax reduction for efficiency investment, by type of tax (import, VAT, purchase, annual car registration) and by type of equipment (appliances, cars, lamps)
- Cross-cutting measures
- Innovative communication tools
- Voluntary agreements.
Exercises have been carried out extensively to measure how effective these energy efficiency policies are. As an example, IEA reviews the state of the art of the energy efficiency policies, highlighting strengths and areas for improvement (Table 1.1 and Table 1.2).
Table 1.1 Summary of strengths and innovations in IEA member countriesā energy efficiency policies in the building, industrial and transport sectors6
| Buildings | - Full implementation of building certification in several EU countries
- Policies promoting passive energy houses
- Energy efficiency requirements in building codes
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| Industry | - High coverage of industry energy statistics in all countries
- Policies for promoting energy management
- Ad hoc policies for SMEs
- Policies for cogeneration, energy efficient electric motors
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| Transport | - Policies aimed at rolling resistance of tyres
- Fuel efficiency standards for light and heavy duty vehicles (JP only)
- Eco drive policies
- Scrappage schemes encouraging purchase of more efficient and less polluting new vehicles
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Table 1.2 Summary of challenges and areas for improvement in IEA member countriesā energy efficiency policies in the building, industrial and transport sectors7
| Buildings | - Establish stronger energy efficiency requirements for buildings
- Strengthen support for Passive Houses and zero-energy buildings
- Increase promotion of energy efficiency windows and glazing
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| Industry | - Establish measures to optimize energy efficiency in motor driven systems
- Set up policies and measures to assist SMEs
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| Transport | - Ensure the implementation fuel efficiency standards of planned policies
- Create fuel efficiency standards for heavy duty vehicles
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Despite having a huge potential, energy efficiency policies8 are difficult to implement. Why? Energy efficiency faces pervasive barriers, including lack of access to capital for energy efficiency investments, insufficient information, and externality costs that are not reflected in energy prices. Moreover political commitment to maximizing the implementation of energy efficiency policies may also have been challenged by the current economic crisis. Energy efficiency programmes must compete for funding with other priorities such as employment, health and social security.
1.1 Standardization
As stated above, energy efficiency faces barriers to success. Examples of such barriers include: the lack of awareness of the savings potential, inadequate performance efficiency information and metrics, the tendency to focus on the performance of individual components rather than the energy yield or consumption of complete systems, split incentives and the tendency to focus on lowest initial cost rather than life cycle cost. Standards can help in overcoming some of these barriers. Standards, for instance, can provide common measurement and test methods to assess the use of energy and the reductions attained through new technologies and processes, as well as providing a means of codifying best practices and management processes for efficient energy use and conservation.
Furthermore, standards can provide design checklists and guides that can be applied to both the design of new systems and the retrofit of existing systems; they can provide standard calculation methods so that sound comparisons of alternatives can be made in specific situations and they can help with the adaptation of infrastructure to integrate new technologies and aid interoperability.
An overview of the current standardization activities on ene...
