The Impacts of Energy Efficiency Modelling in Policy Making

Christian Calvillo ()
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Christian Calvillo: Centre for Energy Policy, School of Government and Public Policy, University of Strathclyde, McCance Building, 16 Richmond Street, Glasgow G1 1XQ, UK

Energies, 2023, vol. 16, issue 4, 1-23

Abstract: Bottom-up energy system models have been used extensively to analyse future energy scenarios, addressing a wide variety of policy questions. This paper focuses on energy efficiency, a key energy, climate, and economic policy area where several examples of energy system model applications can be found in the literature. This paper analyses how different studies implement energy efficiency scenarios in energy system models and explains how the approach taken can affect the results significantly, potentially affecting policy decisions. This analysis contributes to understanding how this type of modelling framework considers energy efficiency policy issues and the extent of insight provided, or not, on different dimensions. With the aim of identifying ‘best practice’ in using energy system models to inform effective analysis of energy efficiency policy, the UK TIMES energy system model is used to implement five different energy efficiency scenarios for residential heating following different modelling approaches and replicating scenarios available in the literature. The study concludes that energy efficiency scenarios, implementing the same target, produce significantly different results in terms of technology mix, energy use, emissions and costs. Additionally, the outcomes show that there is no overall best energy efficiency scenario, as each impacts on different policy targets, which could come into conflict with each other.

Keywords: energy efficiency; energy system models; energy scenarios; energy policy; TIMES (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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