Energy efficiency measures: the next generation

摘要

Government and industrial partners agree on the idea thatenergy saving is beneficial for companies and for sustainableeconomic development. Still, it is challenging to achieve substantialextra savings over a longer span of time. The first stepsare normally easy. Simple measures like process optimizationor energy management can yield small savings in every company.Experiences in Dutch LTA prove that constant attentiongenerates new possibilities after a few years: "low-hanging fruit'grows back.To achieve more radical savings though, it is necessary tomake more significant changes in process design, steps that arenot easily taken if one only looks for short term gains. Recenteconomic developments make progress even harder, with companiesstruggling to survive and government funding declining.A new approach is needed. Roadmaps, with a time span of20 years show the way. These roadmaps sketch the energy futureof a specific sector and may guide further developments.They describe what is needed to achieve savings up to 50 %. Together,companies and government identify bottlenecks. Theseare the base for a research and development agenda.The idea is that long-term research agendas are translatedinto concrete actions in company plans. The covenants provideda good platform for combining of and balancing attentionbetween medium and longer term road maps and shorterterm measures. Where needed, industries may seek for supportin new policy instruments, such as the government's new innovationpolicy, while at a shorter term companies may makeuse of the Green Deal approach in overcoming bottlenecks inimplementation.This paper shows the first experiences with this approach,how roadmaps may reinforce each other and how the policy instrumentsin the Netherlands work in innovation and deploymentof energy efficient options in industry.