White certificates in France: the difficulty to standardize energy savings from an energy efficiency action – illustration through the micro-modulating burner case

摘要

The White Certificates Scheme started in France in 2006. It isbased on the obligation for energy suppliers to fulfill an objectiveof energy saving, related to their market position. EDF isthe main actor and thus bears the highest objective. The systemaddresses all energy-using sectors and is based on two mechanismsto get Certificates: by the standardization of generic actionsthat can be reproduced and applied to many end-users,or by the constitution of specific actions, either extra-large oratypical ones.The standard actions are described in “forms”. During thefirst 3-year period 170 forms have been edited, 25 for industry.This paper focuses on one of these forms: the implementationof micro-modulating burners on industrial boilers. It grants a2 % saving, which a rule-of-thumb gain acknowledged by theinvolved parties (public authorities, experts …).Nevertheless EDF and Babcock-Wanson, a burner and boilerprovider, thought the saving was low compared to their feedbackfrom customers. Thus a partnership between the twoactors was concluded and a test program in EDF’s laboratorywas undertaken. The calculated savings stemming from the labworks are more than 5 %, which allows the partners to proposea revision of the form.This paper displays the White Certificates scheme in France,explains the process of a standard form creation, displays theoutput of the first 3-year period and presents the results of theperformance tests.