Implementation of energy efficiency projects by Dutch industry

As potentials for energy savings are huge, industry can provide a major contribution to energy savings goals. This paper focuses on the energy savings realized under the Dutch voluntary agreements in the period 2001-2011. Participants in these schemes are obliged to plan and implement all measures with a payback period of less than 5 years. This paper shows how many of these projects have been implemented and how much savings they generate. Our findings show that large differences exist in the realized savings between individual companies. There is however no significant difference in savings observed between companies that participate in the Emission Trading System (ETS) and companies that do not. Although it is impossible to disentangle the drivers behind the implementation of these projects, the amount of savings suggest that at least part of them was implemented because of different energy policy instruments. © 2013 Elsevier Ltd.