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[EEA10] EU energy efficiency trends and targets

Diedert Debusscher
Updated

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Date & Time

June 25, 2024; 14h30 - 15h30 CEST

Speakers

Description

The EU has set ambitious energy efficiency targets across all sectors. This webinar will explore the changes taking place in terms of energy consumption and improvements in energy efficiency, analysing the state of the energy transition at the EU level. It will highlight key energy efficiency trends, drivers of growth in energy demand, and quantify energy savings in each sector. It will further explore how recent policy have been contributing or will contribute to closing these gaps.

Recording

Highlights

  • A decoupling of energy consumption and GDP is evident, with primary energy intensity decreasing three times faster since 2022 (-6% per year) compared to 2010-2019 (-2% per year).

  • Since 2019, final consumption has declined across all sectors (-1.2% per year overall), with a steeper decline in industry and services (-1.8% per year). This reduction is largely due to a surge in energy prices (+70% in industry, nearly 40% for households). According to initial estimates by Enerdata, final consumption dropped by almost 2% in 2023 and 2022, with the smallest decline in transport and the largest in industry.

  • There has been a decoupling of energy-related CO2 emissions from total energy supply since 2010. In 2023, CO2 emissions were 27% lower than in 2010. This reduction is attributed 60% to the decrease in energy supply and 40% to decarbonization (reduction in the average emission factor from 2.06 to 1.82 tCO2/toe).

  • Since 2020, a series of unusual years has made it challenging to predict future trends: a collapse in demand in 2020, a strong rebound in 2021, and a decline in consumption since 2022 due to high prices and supply constraints.

  • One certainty is the increasing decoupling between final and primary consumption, driven by the growing share of wind and solar power generation, which doesn't account for losses in primary consumption.

  • The improvement in energy efficiency among final consumers has accelerated since 2019, following slower progress between 2014 and 2019. This acceleration is partly due to higher energy prices and may be partially reversible. The most significant gains in energy efficiency have been seen in households, driven by multiple regulations and incentives at both the EU and national levels.

  • From 2010 to 2020, Energy Efficiency Policies saved around 4.36 Mtoe/year, accounting for 50% of the observed top-down savings. The rest comes from autonomous savings and previous policies, as analysed by the Odyssee-Mure/eceee EU Energy Efficiency Scoreboard.

  • An analysis using the MURE database and a newly developed Policy Assessment Tool projects savings of about 4.10 Mtoe/year by 2030. A similar result (4.97 Mtoe/year) comes from the European Commission's analysis of Draft NECPs. The EU Commission's analysis based on Art. 7 (now Art. 8) of the Energy Efficiency Directive contributions indicates a significant increase in measure impacts for 2021, aligning with the observed rise in top-down savings during that period.

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