Energy supplier obligations and white certificate schemes: Comparative analysis of experiences in the European Union

By Paolo Bertoldi, S. Rezessy, E. Lees, P. Baudry, A. Jeandel, N. Labanca. 2010

151 citations recorded by the source corpus.

A number of Member States of the European Union (EU) have introduced market-based policy portfolios based on quantified energy savings obligations on energy distributors or suppliers, possibly coupled with certification of project-based energy savings (via white certificates), and the option to trade the certificates or obligations. The paper provides an up-to-date review and analysis of results to date of white certificate schemes in the EU. In the EU supplier obligations and white certificate schemes have delivered larger savings than originally expected with obliged companies exceeding targets and, in some cases, at cost below what policy makers have anticipated. Supplier obligations foster the uptake of standardised energy efficiency actions often targeting smaller energy users (residential sector), lowering the transaction costs and contributing to market transformation. The role of certificate trading is more ambiguous. Trading can bring benefits where the target is set sufficiently high with respect to the energy-saving potential in the sectors covered. Theoretically trading may be better suited for broader systems with comprehensive coverage, but even in smaller schemes trading may reduce the transaction costs of compliance for obliged actors without sufficient expertise on end-use energy efficiency. Yet, trading increases the administrative cost ratio of energy-saving obligations.

Subfields: Environmental Engineering, Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/d9144fbc71e4faa29e957f45271efa24d21a2140

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In Environmental Engineering

In Renewable Energy, Sustainability and the Environment

Citations in the corpus

Adoption of energy-efficiency measures in SMEs—An empirical analysis based on energy audit data from Germany (2012, background): “In addition,energy audits could be linked with energy-efficiency obligations and white certificate schemes, which are already in place in several European countries (Bertoldi et al. 2010).”
How to finance energy renovation of residential buildings: Review of current and emerging financing instruments in the EU (2020, background): “In some MSs such as Italy and France, since energy-saving obligations are combined with tradable white certificates (WCs), the accredited parties (not just the obliged energy providers) can earn WCs which can be subsequently traded (Bertoldi et al., 2010; Bertoldi & Rezessy, 2008).”
Revealing Household Characteristics from Smart Meter Data (2014, background): “Ultimately, creating these services to help their customers use energy more efficiently is crucial for utilities’ attempts to comply with regulatory targets [12].”
Adoption of energy efficient technologies by households – Barriers, policies and agent-based modelling studies (2019, background): “Type of policy instrument Policy instrument Policy directed at References Economic, financial and market based instruments Taxes (reductions, credits, exemptions, energy tax) Households [4,15] Subsidies and grants Households [4,15–17] Tradable white certificates Intermediary parties [4,15,18–21] Sof”