Well known German economist Prof. Dr. Peter Hennicke, who 30 years ago co-authored the book "The
Energy Revolution Is Possible", now is concerned about his country’s insufficient
progress in energy efficiency, comparing to other EU countries. Germany, the
continent's largest user of energy, ranks now 18th in terms of final energy
intensity out of 28 E.U. countries. It has been overtaken by number of other
European countries, including the United Kingdom, the Netherlands and France,
and dropped down now even below the E.U. average level.
Despite German law provides more than 80
policy measures spread out over seven federal agencies, yet, over the past two
decades, primary energy consumption in Germany has hardly declined. Facing threat
of legal action because of noncompliance with the European Union's 2012 Energy
Efficiency Directive, in 2014 German government adopted additional measures,
including energy efficiency tax bonus.
Another program, very successful
Danish approach, doesn’t rely on energy efficiency financing from the state budget.
Rather, it puts energy efficiency obligation on energy distributors of
electricity, gas, district heating and oil, who engage private companies to
implement energy efficiency measures and finance them by adding the cost to distribution
tariffs. This way Denmark fostered creation of the energy services industry
involving specialized installers, construction companies, engineering firms and
real estate managers. Usually they do not assist with financing or offer guaranteed
energy savings, like traditional ESCOs, but, instead, they help energy
consumers to implement the savings and qualify for the subsidy from the energy
distributors. Since the program's inception in 2006, Denmark has tripled its
energy savings to a 3 percent annual rate, Read more at
http://www.eenews.net/
