The End of Energy Efficiency Improvements = The Start of Energy Savings?!

摘要

While increased energy efficiency of household appliances has reduced energy consumption to levels below a business as usual scenario, it has not resulted in decreased household electricity consumption. Current appliance policies are based on improving the energy efficiency of selected appliances and these alone will not achieve the targets that have been agreed under the Kyoto protocol. Furthermore, some appliance trends worsen the problems for current policies. For white goods for instance, energy efficiency improvements are slowing due to technical limits, whereas the increasing number and the changing identity of appliances make establishing policies more difficult. The concept of sustainable energy balance is presented as an alternative policy framework to make the change from appliance efficiency alone to a set of integrated policies that result in the decrease of household CO2 emissions. In the sustainable energy balance scenario, energy consumption equals sustainable production of energy. The CO2 target for households is, like the targets for other sectors, derived from higher level policy goals. Financial instruments (e.g. an energy tax) and information instruments (e.g. feedback on household electricity consumption) are suggested as useful instruments at a household level to achieve household targets. Appliance efficiency policies will continue to play an important role in this broader policy goal, as will policies to increase the sustainable production of energy.