Impact of energy policy instruments on the estimated level of underlying energy efficiency in the EU residential sector

Massimo Filippini, Lester Hunt and Jelena Zorić

Energy Policy, 2014, vol. 69, issue C, 73-81

Abstract: The promotion of energy efficiency is seen as one of the top priorities of EU energy policy (EC, 2010). In order to design and implement effective energy policy instruments, it is necessary to have information on energy demand price and income elasticities in addition to sound indicators of energy efficiency. This research combines the approaches taken in energy demand modelling and frontier analysis in order to econometrically estimate the level of energy efficiency for the residential sector in the EU-27 member states for the period 1996 to 2009. The estimates for the energy efficiency confirm that the EU residential sector indeed holds a relatively high potential for energy savings from reduced inefficiency. Therefore, despite the common objective to decrease ‘wasteful’ energy consumption, considerable variation in energy efficiency between the EU member states is established. Furthermore, an attempt is made to evaluate the impact of energy-efficiency measures undertaken in the EU residential sector by introducing an additional set of variables into the model and the results suggest that financial incentives and energy performance standards play an important role in promoting energy efficiency improvements, whereas informative measures do not have a significant impact.

Keywords: Energy efficiency; Residential energy demand; Stochastic frontier analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (105)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S030142151400086X
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
Working Paper: Impact of energy policy instruments on the estimated level of underlying energy efficiency in the EU residential sector (2013)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:enepol:v:69:y:2014:i:c:p:73-81

DOI: 10.1016/j.enpol.2014.01.047

Access Statistics for this article

Energy Policy is currently edited by N. France

More articles in Energy Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().