About Energy Efficiency

With the European Green deal, energy efficiency has again been recognised as an important element of the EU’s political agenda. Policy makers are progressively understanding energy efficiency as a key enabler for a low-cost and rapid decarbonisation of the energy system, and for reaching climate and energy targets in 2030 and 2050

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Our mission and approach

Energy Efficiency Watch 4 (EEW4) is a HORIZON 2020 project, coordination and support action, aiming at supporting policy makers in EU MS in improving the degree of successful implementation of policy instruments for energy efficiency, and thus contribute to reaching the target of Energy Efficiency Directive (EED).

The project intends to develop narratives for national, regional and local level creating a broader understanding of the multiple benefits of energy efficiency such as: improvement of air quality, modernization of buildings, job creation, climate protection and energy security.

Objective 1

Discuss and broadly disseminate the essence of revised EU directives on energy efficiency under the umbrella of the Clean Energy Package (CEP), primarily on EED and EPBD, with decision makers and relevant stakeholders. The objective will be reached through the following activities:

1

Events at European and national parliaments

2

Events at regional and municipal levels in all EU MS

3

Dissemination of findings and results via website, social media and a brochure

Objective 2

Create a strong link between energy efficiency policies triggered by the new EU directives EEW and EPBD, and supportive narratives. This will be achieved through:

Collecting input from various stakeholder groups on elements for narrative building which can support policy implementation in the respective country and sector context.

  • ● MEP

  • ● National Parliaments

  • ● Regional and local energy agencies

  • ● Scientific community

  • ● Business stakeholders

Structuring and analyzing the input by a group of experienced experts in the project team, supported by selected external experts and a focus group from the various stakeholder groups.

Objective 3

Develop and test new narratives and provide policy recommendations. This will be achieved through:

Writing ten case studies, in which the interaction between the implementation of policy instruments and supportive narratives is shown in different country and sector contexts.

Testing these case studies with a variety of stakeholders and based on their feedback develop a narrative toolbox and successful narratives.

The relevant findings on the conjunction between policy instruments and complementary narratives will be summarized in a 5-page document, tailored to policy makers and further influencers from the EE community.

All project’s results will be published on Publications.

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The document will provide condensed insight on lessons learned and will show ways how to further increase the ambition level of policies by an appropriate narrative.

Benefits

EEW4 supports full engagement of the public sector at all governance levels, in order to deliver on the Energy Union targets, by the development of narratives at national, regional and local levels. These narratives form an essential building block towards higher levels of implementation. They combine the aim of decarbonization of Europe’s economy with other key benefits of energy efficiency which increase broad acceptance in society for other reasons than climate protection.

The project will address all sectors of energy efficiency technologies, such as buildings, industry or services, in order to represent the full range of benefits and contributions of energy efficiency. It will in this context strongly focus on communication and knowledge sharing between policy makers and market participants (the business stakeholders’ community).

Our stakeholders

The project foresees an involvement of all governance levels.

The national and EU levels are reached via regular Parliamentary Workshops, Interparliamentary Meetings, and via participation of representatives of the administration in the survey.

The regional and municipal levels are reached through the activities such as dedicated workshops, webinars and local events of the network partners Borg&Co (in cooperation with eceee), FEDARENE and Energy Cities.

EEW4 will reach out as well to the representatives of business community, national experts from energy agencies through the network partner ESV, and civil society.

Stakeholders involved with pictures and quotes?

Previous Energy Efficiency Watch projects

Energy Efficiency Watch 4 is based on the findings of the preceding projects EEW3, EEW2 and EEW1. EEW 1-3 analysed the mechanisms of how to further encourage mutual learning on policy instruments among the EU MS, showing that comprehensive policy packages are more effective than single, non-combined measures, illustrating good practice and providing recommendations on how to further improve the process of policy development.

A key finding of EEW3 was that successful implementation depends to great extent on the existence of an underlying national or regional narrative about key benefits of energy efficiency, accepted and shared by stakeholders and also significant parts of the population.