The paper suggests an energy efficiency benchmark for a high level monitoring in order to fulfill the energy efficiency goals of the federal government in Germany until 2020 and 2050. Based on statistical energy consumption data of the industrial sectors according to the NACE-Code classification, energy efficiency can be evaluated on different abstraction levels, resulting in aggregated indicators. At the same time the approach offers for single industrial small or medium sized enterprises (SME) to economically monitor the achieved level of energy efficiency and its development over time. This is additionally based on company specific reference values concerning annual energy consumption, turnover, gross value added and number of employees. Characteristic energy efficiency indicators are determined for the company and set in relationship to the mean values of the corresponding industrial sector. These ratio indicators can be recalculated annually and show if the single company is competitive concerning its energy efficiency level and gain. Because of the explanatory power of the suggested benchmark despite simplicity in survey and interpretation, we suggest to use it as incentive system to reward energy efficiency gains of a certain percentage above average in the industrial sector with lower taxation.
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