Abstract
The achievement of the 32.5% energy efficiency target set for 2030 in the Energy Efficiency Directive 2018/2002 could determine the success of the EU Member States’ actions and policy measures to improve energy efficiency. However, the way the target was set presents several limitations, and the target is based on a hypothetical percentage of future primary energy use rather than absolute energy savings. Thus, the objectives of this study are to provide new insight into (i) the levels of energy efficiency improvements achieved by the EU over the period 1995–2015 by employing a decomposition analysis approach—Logarithm Mean Divisia Index—and using disaggregated final energy consumption data, (ii) the progress of the EU towards the energy efficiency target set for 2030, and (iii) the energy security and climate benefits associated with energy efficiency improvements. The results show that from 1995 to 2015, efficiency allowed the EU to save approximately 235 Mtoe of final energy. Additionally, energy efficiency improvements reduced the EU’s dependence on energy imports at the average rate of 1% per year, saved 811 MtCO2, and contributed to achieving 52.5% of the energy efficiency target set for 2030.
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Notes
Motorcycles and small appliances are excluded from the analysis due to the lack of data regarding the passenger kilometre for motorcycles and the stock of small appliances.
The decomposition is perfect and there is no residual at the aggregate (single-step procedure) and subcategory (step-by-step procedure) levels.
‘Gross inland energy consumption’ (GIC) is the total energy demand in a country or region. GIC represents the quantity of energy necessary to satisfy the inland consumption of the geographical entity under consideration. GIC covers consumption by the energy sector (primary energy), the final energy consumption by end users, distribution and transformation losses, and the energy consumed for purposes other than producing useful energy.
According to Reuter et al. (2019), from 2000 to 2015, the intensity effect contributed to a reduction of 210 Mtoe in the EU final energy, counteracting the increase in final energy due to activity effects (125 Mtoe).
In May 2018, the European Commission presented a legislative proposal setting the first-ever CO2 emission standards for heavy-duty vehicles in the EU. The proposal establishes an indicative reduction target of 15% in 2025 and at least of 30% in 2030 compared with 2019 average CO2 emission levels (European Commission 2018).
From 1995 to 2015, the contribution of the services valued added to the economy increased by 3.8%.
These calculations are based on the methodology used by the EC (European Commission 2016b) to determine the contribution of each sector to the final energy consumption reduction (compared with the historical 2005 final energy consumption levels) in different scenarios.
In 2015, 29.4% of the EU imports of natural gas, 27.7% of the EU imports of crude oil, and 25.8% of the EU imports of solid fuels were obtained from Russia, whereas 25.9% of the EU imports of natural gas and 11.4% of the EU imports of crude oil were obtained from Norway (Eurostat 2018b, c, d). The amount of these imported sources combined is 360.3 Mtoe.
The ‘Greenhouse gases’ (GHGs) include the following: CO2 (carbon dioxide), N2O (nitrous oxide) in CO2 equivalent, CH4 (methane) in CO2 equivalent, HFCs (hydrofluorocarbons) in CO2 equivalent, PFCs (perfluorocarbons) in CO2 equivalent, SF6 (sulfur hexafluoride) in CO2 equivalent, and NF3 (nitrogen trifluoride) in CO2 equivalent.
‘CO2e’ or ‘carbon dioxide equivalent’ is a term used to describe different greenhouse gases in a common unit. For any quantity and type of greenhouse gas, CO2e is the amount of CO2 that could have the equivalent global warming impact. This term allows “bundles” of greenhouse gases to be expressed as a single number and different bundles of GHGs to be easily compared (Brander and Davis 2012).
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Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the participants of the ‘Energizing Futures—Sustainable Development and Energy in Transition Conference’ (June 13–14, 2018) in Tampere, Sylvia Lorek, and the six anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments on the earlier version of this paper.
Funding
This work was partially financed by the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation (Jenny ja Antti Wihurin rahasto) under project grant Trotta/00180402, the European Commission under project grant EUFORIE/H2020-EE-2014-2015-RIA/649342, and the Academy of Finland under project grant Kalmi/2700041011.
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Trotta, G. Assessing energy efficiency improvements, energy dependence, and CO2 emissions in the European Union using a decomposition method. Energy Efficiency 12, 1873–1890 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12053-019-09818-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12053-019-09818-7