The Challenge to Meet EU's 2020 Efficiency Goals

The EU has set a policy target of achieving 20 percent energy savings by 2020, thereby saving consumers money, increasing the security of supply, reducing emissions and creating jobs. The EU faces several challenges with this goal and is taking steps to meet it, including issuing the Energy Efficiency Action Plan 2011 and revising the End-Use Efficiency and Energy Services Directive. In this context, RAP is helping policymakers and stakeholders identify the mechanisms, programmes and sources of funding needed to realize deep, cost-effective energy savings.

RAP has made significant contributions through the Energy Savings 2020 study, which RAP commissioned with the European Climate Foundation. The study found that the EU will need to triple its efforts to meet the 2020 goal, which is still achievable and would save EU’s energy consumers up to €78 billion  ($100 billion) annually. The study was presented to the European Commission’s DG Energy and to Member States and stakeholders in 2010, and has been a key resource in developing new policies to meet the 2020 efficiency targets.

A crucial element in tapping Europe’s efficiency potential lies in ensuring that deep and broad efficiency savings are tapped from the existing building stock, which currently account for 40 percent of the EU’s greenhouse gas emissions. RAP is providing in-depth support to Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) on design elements for a large-scale retrofits programme, helping the SEAI design policies that moderate the high cost of existing fuel subsidies and reviewing the effectiveness of Ireland’s building codes. RAP’s recently released paper, Residential Efficiency Retrofits: A Roadmap for the Future, outlines a series of strategies designed to maximize savings efficiencies from home retrofits. Rethinking and Reframing Energy Savings Obligations outlines the policy context, the “myths and facts” about energy savings obligations, and the lessons learned from international experience in designing them, in order to help frame the discussion about their potential to fill the critical efficiency “policy gap” in Europe. It is also available in German here.