On Monday 20th April, the International Energy Agency convened a workshop at its headquarters in Paris to discuss the state-of-the-art in evaluating the multiple benefits of energy efficiency. This workshop was attended by around 50 people – evaluators, policy makers and academics – from over a dozen countries. The Sussex Energy Group was represented by Lee Stapleton.
Energy use avoided in 2010 by IEA countries (due to investments since 1974) exceeded the demand met by any single primary energy source e.g. oil and gas (IEA, 2014). Yet there is untapped efficiency potential because of barriers such as information failures. Beyond reduced energy demand and lower greenhouse gas emissions, energy efficiency delivers benefits in other areas such as energy security, employment and health and wellbeing. Importantly, these benefits are often overlooked despite their potential for increasing the justification for and adoption of energy efficiency interventions. Thinking in terms of multiple benefits also changes the way we think about the so-called rebound effect. Energy efficiency improvements reduce the effective price of energy services such as heating and cooling. This can result in a rebound, or take-back, whereby more energy services are consumed because they are cheaper. This has tended to be viewed negatively e.g. undermining efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Taking a multiple benefits approach means, for example, acknowledging the potential positives of rebound e.g. reducing fuel poverty and increasing energy security. However there is much work still to be done to get a handle on the nature and extent of rebound in different contexts. Indeed, this is one of the focal points of research currently being undertaken in the Centre on Innovation and Energy Demand. Read more ›
Follow Sussex Energy Group
