Achieving energy savings in the residential and service sector: A challenging case study

The Green Paper on Energy Efficiency introduces an additional energy saving target of 20 % until 2020. At the same time, the Dutch parliament demands an overall speed of energy saving of 2 % a year until 2020. Both targets imply an ambitious increase in saving efforts. This paper focuses on the Dutch residential and services sectors. It includes an inventory of technical and behavioural saving measures that may contribute to energy savings by reducing heat and electricity demand or by increasing conversion efficiency. This paper also provides an inventory of barriers, such as costs and institutional barriers, which inhibit the application of these saving measures. In order to assess the feasibility and cost of reducing energy use, the paper analyses the capability of policy instruments to overcome these barriers. The combined analysis of measures, barriers and policies does not only help to determine the feasibility of achieving various energy saving targets, but also to determine the overall cost involved. Finally, the yearly saving percentages feasible in both sectors are analysed for different upper limits on the acceptable cost per tons of abated CO2.