Energy efficiency is, together with renewable energy sources, a core pillar of the European energy transition towards a sustainable energy system. Energy efficiency provides an answer to climate change and environmental issues and opens up a field of technological innovation.
However, real progress on efficiency is lagging heavily behind the political debate and European legislation. There is a general consensus that advantages of energy efficiency outweigh the challenge of transformation, but in practice it is still seen more like a burden than a chance. The Energy Efficiency Directive as the latest core directive on efficiency is one major step forward. But it still requires strong implementation by Member States, driven by a clear motivation. On a global scale, European industries today are in many respects leading in green tech and efficiency technologies. Maintaining and expanding this position in such future oriented business will be immensely beneficial for an economic recovery, keeping large amounts of capital in Europe, creating jobs, and initiating a change in business models.
The core objective of EEW3 is to establish a constant feedback loop on the implementation of European and national energy efficiency policies and thus enable mutual learning on effective policy making across the EU. EEW3 screens progress of national policies, looks into legislative documents, seeks experts’ knowledge via an EU-wide survey and creates new consultation platforms with a wide spectrum of stakeholders (parliamentarians, regions, cities; European, business and expert stakeholders). It compiles 28 country reports, provides strategic conclusions for more effective policies and presents 10 case studies of well-established policy packages and a feedback-loop report. It thereby intends to improve the implementation of European energy efficiency policies on the energy demand side, such as the new Energy Efficiency Directive (EED) as the main focus of EEW3, but also related policies like the Energy Performance in Buildings Directive (EPBD) and the Eco-Design (ErP) Directive on the national, but also on the regional and local level.
EEW3 aims to support the political work in the field of energy efficiency and intends to sharpen the understanding of success or failure of policies, shows reasons for discrepancies between legislation and reality by creating an ongoing feedback process all over Europe. EEW3 intends to motivate political action among decision makers, especially among parliamentarians (European Parliament, EU28 national Parliaments).
All in all, the three main components of EEW3 are:
- Networking - activation and consultation
of different core networks: European and national parliamentarians, regions, cities, experts, business stakeholders, other external networks. Network-in and network-out are the cornerstone of this part. Consultation platforms will be animated and around 50 events organised. - Competence centre - analysis and digestion
of input from different perspectives: quantitative questionnaires) and qualitative (interviews) survey, analysis of key documents, and consultation of the above mentioned networks. The results will be condensed to 28 country reports. In addition to this, 10 specific case studies of remarkable policy examples, a feedback-loop Report, a brochure providing key policy conclusions with new good practice examples will be produced. - Dissemination and communication - spreading
the expertise and animating the discussion via various events and communication tools.