Energy efficiency and the policy mix

By Jan Rosenow, Tina Fawcett, N. Eyre, V. Oikonomou. 2016

126 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Energy efficiency policy is expected to play a key role for meeting the European Union's energy targets (particularly for reduced energy demand and reduced CO2 emissions) using a range of policy instrument combinations. However, most analyses undertaken so far have focused on single-policy measures rather than developing a more generic framework for assessing to what extent a particular policy mix is effective and under which specific conditions. This paper both contributes to the theoretical literature on policy mixes and undertakes an empirical analysis of the current policy mixes in buildings efficiency policy in 14 European Union countries. Building on the existing literature, and using expert knowledge, an assessment of the interaction of 55 pairs of policies is presented. This identifies policy mixes likely to deliver more, less or the same energy savings in combination than singly. The theoretical assessment is compared with actual policy mixes present within the European Union, highlighting that combinations of multiple financial incentives may need further investigation. By bringing these forms of knowledge together, the paper suggests how buildings policy mixes could be made more effective, shows gaps in current knowledge and highlights key research needs.

Subfields: Building and Construction, Economics and Econometrics, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/58a01fbdb3c5b505f6e0655ef067a3eca4671c3d

How researchers see this paper

The researchers whose trusted networks rank it highest, strongest advocate first. Every researcher gets a different order.

In Building and Construction

1. Karoline S. Rogge
2. F. Kern
3. Michael Howlett
4. Elizabeth Shove

In Economics and Econometrics

1. Karoline S. Rogge
2. F. Kern
3. Michael Howlett
4. Elizabeth Shove
5. Paula Kivimaa
6. Benjamin Sovacool
7. Frank W. Geels
8. David Popp

In Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

1. Karoline S. Rogge
2. F. Kern
3. Michael Howlett
4. Elizabeth Shove
5. Mari Martiskainen
6. Paula Kivimaa

Citations in the corpus

• Conceptual and empirical advances in analysing policy mixes for energy transitions (2017, background): “A number of methodological approaches and analytical frameworks have been developed for such interaction analysis [63,64,38] with much of this work focusing on the EU [65,66].”
• Policy packaging or policy patching? The development of complex energy efficiency policy mixes (2017, background): “It is the latter challenge which the analysis in this article is contributing to (how mixes emerge and change over time), while others have recently contributed to an emerging literature on how to design an effective policy mix (e.g. [59]).”
• The need for comprehensive and well targeted instrument mixes to stimulate energy transitions: The case of energy efficiency policy (2017, unknown): “[24,25,54]) and, to a lesser extent, energy efficiency [13,12].”
• Harnessing theories of the policy process for analysing the politics of sustainability transitions: A critical survey (2017, background): “Instrument interactions have also been investigated in other environmental policy fields such as biodiversity conservation (Ring and Schroeter-Schlaack, 2011) or energy efficiency (Rosenow et al., 2016).”
• What is wrong with energy efficiency? (2018, background): “Political scientists write about national and European Union (EU) efficiency policy, and the need for a mix of such strategies (Kern, Kivimaa, & Martiskainen, 2017; Rosenow et al., 2016).”