Search eceee proceedings

Combining theoretical and empirical evidence: policy packages to make energy savings in buildings happen

Panel: 5. Saving energy in buildings: The time to act is now

This is a peer-reviewed paper.

Authors:
Vera Höfele, Wuppertal Institute for Climate Environment and Energy, Germany
Stefan Thomas, Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Environment and Energy, Germany

Abstract

What are the best policies and measures to stimulate energy efficiency in buildings? The debate around this is at least as diverse as the markets and concepts for energy efficiency in buildings, and often quite controversial. However, no magic formula seems to have been found so far. It is, therefore, time to address the question in a new way – by combining both theoretical evidence on what policy support markets need, and empirical evidence on which combinations or packages of policies have worked.

In the context of its new four-year project bigEE – “Bridging the Information Gap on Energy Efficiency in Buildings”, the Wuppertal Institute is implementing this new approach. The bigEE project aims at developing an international internet-based knowledge platform for energy efficiency in buildings. Hence, it must provide evidence-based information. On the theoretical side, the analysis starts with value chains in the building sector and the barriers but also market-inherent incentives that the different types of market participants face. This enables to identify, which policies and measures need to be combined to jointly overcome the barriers and strengthen the incentives. On the empirical side, model examples of good practice are collected and compared. The search for these is guided by the results of the theoretical analysis, international expert opinion, and existing databases and platforms. In order to identify what is “good practice“, the project uses a newly developed multi-criteria assessment scheme. Finally, the impacts achieved with the model examples, lessons learned, and their transferability will be used to validate the model policy package identified in the theoretical analysis.

The public launch of the bigEE platform is planned for autumn of 2011; eceee Summer Study participants will get a first glance at its content through this paper. The paper presents the methods and tools used and showcases their application for selected types of buildings.

Downloads

Download this paper as pdf: 5-358_Hoefele.pdf

Download this presentation as pdf: 5-358_Hoefele_po.pdf