After the 1970's oil shocks, “energy saving” was the first issue but soon "energy efficiency" gained popularity because of its relativity. “Specific energy consumption” found its way to the first environmental reports of companies. After environmental awakening in the late 1980s, energy efficiency has been among the objectives of environmental policies as well.
Fossil fuel combustion produces a high share of European GHG emissions. The EU energy efficiency targets have been set in absolute terms of energy consumption in relation to a baseline scenario.
Energy efficiency has been considered as an important means to achieve policy targets such as GHG mitigation, increasing the share of renewables, increasing energy security, and enhance job creation. At the same time, the stakeholders consider energy efficiency as a complex and unclear issue, and they don't always know what energy efficiency actually means.
A comprehensive analysis of the energy and environmental performance is lacking, which takes properly into account energy activities at different levels of the economy, and the international energy flows. EUFORIE aims to provide tools for better analysis of energy performance, and tests them in a set of case studies, especially in WP3 and WP4. WP2 has focused on the role of energy efficiency and other drivers in changing energy use and CO2 emissions at the macro level. WP5 has identified promising policy instruments for promoting energy efficiency and energy sufficiency. WP6 has studied energy efficiency in companies, and suggested flexible indicators for energy, material and environmental performance analysis. WP8 has focused on energy efficiency and related policies in China and on EU-China comparison at the macro level, as well as on energy efficiency at the sectoral and provincial level. Additional case studies of EU-China comparison have been made also in WP4. WP7 has focused on participatory approach to explore the role of stakeholders and receive their feedback to the findings of the EUFORIE project.
The results of the EUFORIE project are expected to contribute (1) to the preparatory phase of national and EU energy efficiency related policies, (2) to company reporting, (39 to the general understanding of the concept of energy efficiency, and (3) to the forthcoming framework programmes of research and innovation activities of the EU.
