Abstract
There is wide agreement that energy efficiency improvement
is one of the key strategies to achieve greater sustainability of
the energy system. In the past, the contribution of energy
efficiency has already been considerable.Without the energy
efficiency improvements achieved since the 1970s, current
energy use would have been much higher.
However, the potential for energy efficiency improvement is
much larger than has already been implemented. In the period
leading to 2050, it is possible to stabilise worldwide energy use
at the current level, while economic growth continues at 2.7
percent per year. However, this will require the ambitious
adoption of existing and new energy-efficient technologies.
In addition, policies to promote energy efficiency are very
important to overcome existing market barriers such as high
initial investment costs, split incentives, lack of information and
ingrained habits of producers and consumers.
In this report, we evaluate the progress in the field of energy
efficiency in various sectors such as buildings and appliances,
manufacturing industry, transport, agriculture and energy
supply in the past years as well as the potential for further
energy efficiency improvements for the coming years. This
report also addresses what is required to enhance and speed
up the rate of energy efficiency improvements to reach its
potential levels.
Original language | Undefined/Unknown |
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Place of Publication | Vienna |
Publisher | REEEP |
Number of pages | 35 |
Publication status | Published - 2008 |