US energy conservation and efficiency policies: Challenges and opportunities
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There is a strong consent among scholars and policy makers that limiting current global energy demand and gradually reducing it towards a sustainable level of consumption is a key component of any strategies and pathways to reach the Paris Agreement climate target, and, in particular, carbon neutrality by mid-century. Given the stringency and urgency of the climate target and the current global increase of energy demand, in addition to investments in energy efficiency technologies, there is the need for a change of energy end-users behaviour and life style to obtain additional energy savings by limiting the demand for services. Traditionally, energy efficiency policies have mainly targeted and promoted energy efficient technologies (e.g., energy performance standards for vehicles, appliances and buildings, financial incentives for new technologies, etc.). In some cases, the energy savings achieved have been less than expected, due to a rebound effect, or because external factors (e.g., growth in populations or economies) have increased energy consumption. The "traditional" energy efficiency policies are still very necessary, but are not sufficient for reaching the Paris Agreement target and the rapid reduction of the energy demand. Policies focusing on energy conservation and sufficiency principles complement efficiency policies, in particular those aiming at changing end-user consumer behaviour and lifestyle by imposing some limitation to the demand for energy services. The article first reviews the concept of energy savings compared to energy efficiency and introduce the concept of energy sufficiency. Then the article explores and discusses some existing and new policy instruments that can address energy conservation and sufficiency such as: personal carbon allowances; energy/carbon taxation; progressive appliance and vehicles standards, and progressive building codes. The article's focus is mainly on individual end-users and on residential buildings. Finally, the article provides an ex-ante assessment of the policies analysed, including their limitations, and offers some policy recommendations, based on a combination of instruments.
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Energy efficiency is one of the most effective means of curbing energy consumption and associated pollutant emissions. However, energy-saving opportunities at negative net costs, or an energy-efficiency gap, widely exist and they defy an entirely rational explanation. This paper examines the significant overperformance of energy-intensive firms against their assigned energy-conservation goals in a national program in China's 11th Five-Year plan (2006–2010). Higher energy prices can be only partially responsible for more active energy saving. Behavioral constraints are explained to cause the bounded rationality of firms on energy-efficiency investment. As our theoretical and empirical studies show, energy-conservation goals could overcome such behavioral constraints to accelerate the commercialization of energy-efficiency technologies, reduce uncertainty and hesitancy of relevant investment, facilitate the enrichment of information, and concentrate the attention of firms on energy conservation. We conclude that goal-setting could provide an effective complementary policy instrument in dealing with energy conservation in China and possibly in other parts of the world.
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Appliances and, more broadly, energy-using products have totally changed our lives in less than a century. However, these modern marvels convey too often an image of lightness and of lack of economic and environmental costs, as their consumption of energy (e.g. electricity, fuel coal or gas) is not directly related to practices. Public policies are increasingly encouraging the production of more efficient energy-using products. The energy efficiency of appliances is seen as a step for reducing the energy consumption of households. There are good arguments for the increase of energy efficiency of products and appliances: energy independence, energy cost and climate change.
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Abstract Current examples of these priorities include reducing greenhouse gas emissions, improving the energy efficiency, energy marketing, energy cost, energy planning and management, energy security, energy policy, energy strategy, and alternative energy usage. The demand for energy is increasing at a significant rate due to the exponential growth of world population. Advanced energy-efficiency technologies reduce the energy needed to provide energy services, thereby reducing environmental and national security costs of using energy and potentially increasing its reliability. Energy conservation is needed for improved energy efficiency, improved insulation and heat recovery, effective energy usage, process change and improvement, and good maintenance of machinery and equipment.
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