towards cooperative policy approaches in china drivers for voluntary agreements on industrial energy efficiency in nanjing energy efficiency is a national priority for china as rapid energy consumption growth aggravates its greenhouse gas emissions local air pollution and energy scarcity in the 1990s a large number of voluntary agreements emerged in industrialised countries in order to improve industrial energy efficiency these experiences are now taken into account in china this article analyses the drivers for voluntary agreements on industrial energy efficiency in china based on a case study of three enterprises in nanjing jiangsu province furthermore the article reviews the institutional set up of energy policy and investigates the pertaining policy culture from the findings conclusions are drawn on the role of voluntary agreements within china s larger policy context we conclude that opposed to avoiding stricter regulation voluntary agreements in nanjing are reinterpreted in view of more stringent national provisions on energy efficiency in the 11th five year plan hence agreements have evolved into an implementation tool of national policy at the local level for industry another major driver for participation was identified as improving its relations with local authorities voluntary agreements showed to have the potential to overcome traditional constraints of implementing top down policies at the local level in china

reforming residential electricity tariff in china block tariffs pricing approach the chinese households that make up approximately a quarter of world households are facing a residential power tariff reform in which a rising block tariff structure will be implemented and this tariff mechanism is widely used around the world the basic principle of the structure is to assign a higher price for higher income consumers with low price elasticity of power demand to capture the non linear effects of price and income on elasticities we set up a translog demand model the empirical findings indicate that the higher income consumers are less sensitive than those with lower income to price changes we further put forward three proposals of chinese residential electricity tariffs compared to a flat tariff the reasonable block tariff structure generates more efficient allocation of cross subsidies better incentives for raising the efficiency of electricity usage and reducing emissions from power generation which also supports the living standards of low income households

using latent variable approach to estimate china s economy wide energy rebound effect over 1954 2010 the energy rebound effect has been a significant issue in china which is undergoing economic transition since it reflects the effectiveness of energy saving policy relying on improved energy efficiency based on the ipat equation and brookes explanation of the rebound effect this paper develops an alternative estimation model of the rebound effect by using the estimation model and latent variable approach which is achieved through a time varying coefficient state space model we estimate china s economy wide energy rebound effect over 1954 2010 the results show that the rebound effect evidently exists in china as a result of the annual average of 39 73 over 1954 2010 before and after the implementation of china s reform and opening up policy in 1978 the rebound effects are 47 24 and 37 32 with a strong fluctuation and a circuitously downward trend respectively indicating that a stable political environment and the development of market economy system facilitate the effectiveness of energy saving policy although the energy saving effect of improving energy efficiency has been partly realised there remains a large energy saving potential in china

energy saving in energy market reform the feed in tariffs option abstract the use of feed in tariffs fits is now widespread for renewable energy and under discussion for other low carbon electricity generation but not for energy efficiency there is a small literature on fits for electricity demand reduction but not energy efficiency more generally this paper considers the general application of fits on the demand side and sets out the economic arguments in the context of changing energy markets it then discusses the implications of some practical issues including the definitional problems arising from the difference between energy efficiency and demand reduction using experience from historical energy efficiency programmes it considers the public benefits payment methods and policy scope that need to be considered and how these might affect policy design it makes some provisional estimates of economically justified payments in the context of the proposed uk energy market reform it concludes that fits for energy saving might be a powerful tool for incentivising energy efficiency

the energy rebound effect in china s light industry a translog cost function approach abstract china is in its industrialization and urbanization development stage which requires strong energy support with the largest population in the world the energy endowment of china is relatively small therefore energy conservation is one of the key tools for china s sustainable development and energy security when making policies for conservation the chinese government needs to deal with rebound effect carefully in 2012 china s light industry consumed 316 million tons of coal equivalents accounting for 9 percent of the country s total energy consumption which is about the total amount of energy consumed by south korea based on the translog cost function the magnitude of rebound effect in china s light industry is estimated for the first time using the dynamic ordinary least squares and seemingly unrelated regression methods considering the asymmetric effects of energy prices on energy consumption the rebound effect is approximately 37 7 and all the inputs are substitutes except for labor and energy the different magnitude of rebound effect between light and heavy industry is discussed and some policy implications are provided for more effective energy conservation allowing for the rebound effect

estimates of energy subsidies in china and impact of energy subsidy reform abstract for a transitional economy such as china some energy subsidies are reasonable and sometimes even necessary for achieving social goals however with rising energy prices and environmental concerns we see conflicts emerging between energy subsidies energy demand supply fundamentals and climate change considerations energy subsidies have important implications for sustainable development through their effects on energy use efficiency and the choice of fuel source this paper applies the price gap approach to estimate china s energy subsidies results indicate that china s energy subsidies amounted to cny 356 73 billion in 2007 equivalent to 1 43 of gdp subsidies for oil products consumption are the largest followed by subsidies for the electricity and coal sectors furthermore a cge model is used to analyze the economic impacts of energy subsidy reforms our findings show that removing energy subsidies will result in a significant fall in energy demand and emissions but will have negative impacts on macroeconomic variables we conclude that offsetting policies could be adopted such that certain shares of these subsidies are reallocated to support other sustainable development measures which could lead to reducing energy intensity and favoring the environment

turkey s energy efficiency assessment white certificates systems and their applicability in turkey abstract the last decade has seen an increase in the importance of energy efficiency and the sustainable use of energy resources due to their significant benefits for reducing a country s dependence on foreign energy resources and increasing awareness on environmental problems turkey aims to reduce its energy intensity by 20 up to 2023 and in order to accomplish this target the country plans to use energy more effectively in various industries and develop financial mechanisms for energy efficiency although much effort has been made to improve energy efficiency additional policies such as marked based incentives are still necessary this article deals with one of the many market based energy efficiency policies called tradable white certificates whc or energy efficiency obligations the current situation of the energy field in turkey and energy consumption by industries is presented first in this paper followed by potentials for energy efficiency in each industry and energy efficiency policies furthermore the theory and applicability of a whc system is introduced and discussed in terms of market conditions choice of obligated participants and market mechanisms and barriers for the turkish electricity and natural gas market to benefit from the residential and industrial energy savings potential

policies for eliminating low efficiency production capacities and improving energy efficiency of energy intensive industries in china abstract china faced the greatest challenge in balancing its economic growth energy and resource security as well as environmental pollution the energy intensive industries which used to be the major force driving china s economic growth had seriously exhausted the countries natural resources and energy and at the same time polluted the environment because of the severe surplus of low efficiency production capacities as a result the chinese government had initiated multiple economic and administrative policies to eliminate these low efficiency production capacities intended to improve the energy efficiency of energy intensive industries these policies are summarized in this paper along with export tax rebating rate resource tax administrative audit and approvals differential electric power pricing and shutting down the low efficiency production capacities the paper also evaluates the effects of these policies by analyzing several key indicators about the energy intensive industries including fixed asset investment growth rate energy intensity of industrial added value waste gas emission intensity of industrial added value the valdex methodology is selected to examine the improving trends of energy efficiency for energy intensive industries the analyzing results show that firstly the development of low efficiency capacities tends to be more sensitive to the policies so the policies that china had enacted really exert very important effects on improving the energy efficiency of energy intensive industries however the effects of economic policies seem more faster and obvious than the fiscal policies besides the results also show that polices which are designed to reserve energy may not necessarily exert the same effects on reducing emissions there is still large room for improving the energy efficiency of energy intensive industries substantial improvement still needs to be done for current policies system some suggestions for future work are provided

macroeconomic effects of efficiency policies for energy intensive industries the case of the uk climate change agreements 2000 2010 abstract this paper reports a study modeling the uk climate change agreements ccas and related energy efficiency policies for energy intensive industrial sectors bottom up estimates of the effects of these policies are introduced into the energy demand equations of a top down dynamic econometric model of the uk economy with fifty industrial sectors mdm e3 this allowed estimation of the effects of the reduced energy use for the outputs from the sectors i e the reductions in unit costs of the energy intensive industries on the demand for their outputs both in the uk and in the export markets the model is solved as a counterfactual 2000 2005 and as a projection 2005 2010 in a series of scenarios to allow estimation of the effects of the policies on inflation and growth as well as on overall energy demand and co 2 emissions the system wide final energy reductions is estimated to be 4 2 mtoe or 2 6 of total final demand for energy by 2010 including a rebound effect of 19 with negligible effects on inflation and a slight increase in economic growth through improved international competitiveness

energy policies for managing china s carbon emission abstract the well documented close relationship between economic growth and energy use indicates that the emergence of a country as an economic power cannot occur without increased in energy use but just as the scale of china s rise as an economic power has no clear parallel in history its conflict between economic growth and energy use has also shattered all precedents this planet s future energy scenario hinges on the ability of this decoupling the question this policy forum addressed is how to find the optimum way to accomplish this decoupling through government directive government centered command and control approaches or cac or market forces market based instruments or mbi it concludes that market rather than government can decide the optimum way to decouple china s economic growth from energy use facilitating this decoupling driven by market force requires getting the prices right for energy

the long term impacts of air pollution control policy historical links between municipal actions and industrial energy efficiency in kawasaki city japan abstract under the pressures of rapid industrialization and urbanization many asian countries are facing the challenge of reducing air pollution and co 2 emissions simultaneously while maintaining their economic growth under such a circumstance a growing attention is focused on successful implementation of co benefit policies that are designed to reduce both air pollutants and co 2 emissions however the concept of co benefit policies must be developed further in order to identify its quantitative and qualitative validity which can be assessed using a reliable methodology for the estimation of co benefits and through clarification of the importance of this approach for stakeholders in urban environmental policy making based on a systematic review of co benefit research and air pollution control policies in japan we investigated the local air pollution control policy in kawasaki city one of the industrial centers of japan and confirmed that it has contributed both to the sharp decline of atmospheric sulfur dioxide so 2 levels and to energy efficiency improvements in local industries our results suggest that preventive actions and local scale compliance enforcement tools that are uniquely designed and act as a form of agreement between government and individual firms could contribute significantly to successful implementation of co benefit policies in the long term we conclude our paper with a discussion of linkages between low carbon technology innovations and policy designs that could further nurture co benefits

measuring energy rebound effect in the chinese economy an economic accounting approach estimating the magnitude of china s economy wide rebound effect has attracted much attention in recent years most existing studies measure the rebound effect through the additional energy consumption from technological progress however in general technological progress is not equivalent to energy efficiency improvement consequently their estimation may be misleading to overcome the limitation this paper develops an alternative approach for estimating energy rebound effect based on the proposed approach china s economy wide energy rebound effect is revisited the empirical result shows that during the period 1981 2011 the rebound effects in china are between 30 and 40 with an average value of 34 3

fuzzy mixed integer non linear programming model for the design of an algae based eco industrial park with prospective selection of support tenants under product price variability abstract eco industrial parks provide a platform for the application of industrial symbiosis where the synergistic network of companies reuse portions of their by products to reduce disposed waste reduce environmental emissions and improve plant efficiency however designing a complex network of material and energy exchanges between companies in an industrial park while satisfying multiple conflicting objectives require a systematic design methodology in addition strategic decision making in an eco industrial park involves the selection of prospective companies i e support tenants which complement the existing companies i e anchor tenants in this study a fuzzy mixed integer non linear programming model is proposed to select prospective support tenants in an eco industrial park while satisfying the product demand minimizing the environmental footprint of the eco industrial park and also maximizing the annualized profit of each company in the eco industrial park a hypothetical but realistic case study involving an algae based eco industrial park is used to demonstrate the application of the model the results demonstrate the selection of the appropriate support tenants for the algae based eco industrial park together with the optimal plant configuration sensitivity analysis is used to assess the performance of the algae based eco industrial park with respect to the changes in prices of the by products the developed model thus aid the planners of an eco industrial park in assessing which among the prospective support tenants would best complements an existing anchor tenant furthermore the model can also identify price negotiation points between tenants for some product streams which may show sensitivity on the plant capacity of each tenant

a critical review on energy efficiency and conservation policies and programs in vietnam abstract due to the rapid population growth and economic development energy demand is likely to triple over the next decade in vietnam development and implementation of energy efficiency and conservation eec review the evolution of the government s eec and identify the challenges and provide the recommendations for implementing eec capacity building close coordination among the relevant ministries and the organizations and agencies during the implementation of eec etc should be put forward in the coming years in addition a number of recommendations for promoting ee in three largest energy consumers in vietnam namely industrial residential and transport sectors has been made in this paper

estimating the rebound effect in us manufacturing energy consumption abstract the energy price shocks of the 1970s are usually assumed to have increased the search for new energy saving technologies where eventual gains in energy efficiencies will reduce the real per unit price of energy services and hence the consumption of energy will rise and partially offset the initial reduction in the usage of energy sources this is the rebound effect which is estimated for the us manufacturing sector using time series data applying the dynamic ols method dols when allowing for asymmetric price effects the rebound effect is found to be approximately 24 for the us manufacturing sector

measuring countries environmental sustainability performance a review and case study of iceland abstract evaluating the environmental sustainability performance of a nation is complex this paper considers the merits of environmental indices and how effective they are when assessing the environmental sustainability of any nation the simplicity and generic qualities of environmental indices currently necessitates a much broader analysis in order to evaluate any nation s genuine environmental sustainability credentials ultimately the development of a synthetic environmental sustainability index is required to fulfil this task using iceland as a case study this paper reviews the usefulness of four selected environmental indices environmental vulnerability index environmental performance index ecological footprint and happy planet index for governance institutions when formulating reasoned responses to challenges by adopting a holistic methodology iceland s environmental sustainability credentials are critically examined in this paper with particular focus given to the impacts deriving from expanded renewable energy utilisation in recent years abundant geothermal and hydropower energy resources have been increasingly used to power heavy industry particularly aluminium production the wider health implications and long term environmental sustainability consequences of renewable energy utilisation have not been analysed in depth within any of the indices socio economic progress in iceland has also been attained alongside the imposition of the highest ecological footprint of any nation in the world as such economic activities in iceland have not occurred in accordance with commonly accepted notions of sustainable development which is focused upon the reconciliation of economic environmental and social objectives together with recognition of current and future need across these domains

energy efficiency economics and policy energy efficiency and conservation are major factors in the reduction of the environmental impact of the energy sector particularly with regard to climate change energy efficiency also contributes to reducing external dependence and vulnerabilities in the energy domain in this paper we discuss the factors that influence energy efficiency and conservation decisions and the most appropriate policies for their promotion although not all public policies seem justified we argue that specific policies for promoting energy conservation may be required preferably based on economic instruments or on the provision of information to consumers

habitat and open space at risk of land use conversion targeting strategies for land conservation funds available to purchase land and easements for conservation purposes are limited this article provides a targeting strategy for protecting multiple environmental benefits that includes heterogeneity in land costs and probability of land use conversion by incorporating spatially explicit land use change and hedonic price models this strategy is compared to two alternative strategies that omit either land cost or conversion threat based on dynamic programming and monte carlo simulations with alternating periods of conservation and development we demonstrate that the positive correlation between land costs and probability of land use conversion affects targeting efficiency using parcel data from sonoma county california

contributing to differentiated technology policy making on the promotion of energy efficiency technologies in heavy industrial sector a case study of china abstract promoting energy efficiency technologies eets in heavy industrial sector is a crucial approach for energy conservation worldwide due to the existence of various barriers the diffusion of eets is often slow and is largely influenced by policy incentives insufficient consideration of the heterogeneity of eets makes the one size fits all policy design scheme ineffective and inefficient in practice therefore this paper analyzes the design of differentiated technology policies to accelerate the promotion of eets the analysis is based on technology classification results from a bottom up technology evaluation system technical attributes were qualitatively analyzed and the 130 total technologies were divided into three segments 76 main production process technologies pp 39 process integrated resource and energy recycling technologies rer and 15 pollution control technologies pc then the 115 pp and rer technologies were quantitatively analyzed by calculating benefit cost ratio investment payback time and technical penetration the evaluation results proved that eets had marked differences in economic efficiency and technical maturity with dynamic investment payback time ranging from 0 3 to 11 years and penetrations ranging from 1 to 80 graphing investment payback time on a vertical axis and technical penetration on a horizontal axis the 115 technologies were classified into four quadrants features and policy support demands of those three types of technologies in the four quadrants were discussed and corresponding technology policies were proposed the thorough technical investigations in this study also provided a complete technological database for policy making which was freely offered on the website of china s ministry of industry and information technology

fiscal impacts of energy efficiency programmes the example of solid wall insulation investment in the uk programmes supporting the installation of energy efficiency measures typically incur a cost in the form of subsidies as well as lost vat income due to reduced energy consumption those costs are to some extent offset by the tax receipts and other revenue streams generated as a result of the activities promoted under the programme in this paper we analyse the budgetary effects of energy efficiency programmes focusing on the example of solid wall insulation in the uk three distinct subsidy options have been defined and modelled for the purpose of this research including two policies with varying degrees of direct subsidy and a low interest loan scheme our analysis shows that a significant amount of the cost of a scheme funding solid wall insulation would be offset by increased revenues and savings a loan scheme due to the high leverage achieves not only budget neutrality but generates additional revenue for the exchequer

rewarding energy savings rather than energy efficiency exploring the concept of a feed in tariff for energy savings abstract financial incentives are important for overcoming certain market barriers to improved energy efficiency and for the adoption of energy efficient technologies financial incentives are mainly focused on the introduction of specific technologies rather than behavioural change while the declared goal of financial support schemes very often is to save energy or reduce harmful emissions rather than to foster new technologies per se it is often encountered that such financial support for energy efficient technologies may not ensure real energy savings due to the rebound effect and various market barriers in the area of renewable energies it is common for financial support to be given to power producers for the verified production of renewable electricity in the form of a guaranteed financial incentive feed in tariff in the energy efficiency policy research little attention has been paid to the possible use of a feed in tariff in the form of a financial incentive based on the kwh saved by the end user this paper discusses the possible setup of a feed in tariff designed to reward energy savings

industrial electricity demand and energy efficiency policy the role of price changes and private r d in the swedish pulp and paper industry abstract the objective of this paper is to analyze electricity demand behaviour in the swedish pulp and paper industry in the context of the increased interest in so called voluntary energy efficiency programs in these programs tax exemptions are granted if the participating firms carry out energy efficiency measures following an energy audit we employ a panel data set of 19 pulp and paper firms and estimate both the own and cross price elasticities of electricity demand as well as the impact of knowledge accumulation following private r d on electricity use the empirical results show that electricity use in the swedish pulp and paper industry is relatively own price insensitive and the self reported electricity savings following the voluntary so called pfe program support the notion of important information asymmetries at the company level however the results display that already in a baseline setting pulp and paper firms tend to invest in private r d that have electricity saving impacts and our model simulations suggest that up to about one third of the industry sector s self reported electricity savings in pfe could be attributable to pure baseline effects future evaluations of voluntary energy efficiency programs must increasingly recognize the already existing incentives to reduce energy use in energy intensive industries

energy efficiency policy impact in india case study of investment in industrial energy efficiency the objective of this paper is to identify the effectiveness of energy policy and capital investment in energy efficiency technologies in the industrial sector in india indian energy policies relating to industrial energy efficiency over the past 25 years are briefly reviewed and a comparison study of these energy efficiency policies and strategies in india and china has been carried out interviews were conducted with a number of government policy making institutions and a national industrial development bank the accounts of 26 industrial enterprises which applied and used a loan of the asian development bank were audited for data collection field visits to seven industrial entrepreneurs were undertaken in a case study methodologies used in this study include documentation cross country reviews on energy policies questionnaire design and distribution in the industrial sector and on site auditing of energy efficiency technologies this paper concludes that current energy policies and strategies in india need further improvement to promote energy efficiency investment and energy efficiency technology development in the industrial sector this paper will interest those policy makers and industrial entrepreneurs who are willing to finance energy efficiency projects and improve energy efficiency in the industrial sector

a review of optimal energy policy instruments on industrial energy efficiency programs rebound effects and government policies abstract industrial energy efficiency programs ieeps are defined as one of the most popular government policies that aim to reduce energy consumption in industrial energy intensive sectors in this paper we review and classify the most important academic studies that have addressed the environmental and economic aspects of ieeps using a systematic review the classification of energy policy instruments has been developed based on an analytical approach we discuss also the outputs benefits and barriers of ieeps besides a comprehensive argument about the restrictive policies on the rebound effects made after the implementation of these programs the results disclose that china usa and sweden are the most addressed countries on ieeps and their applications in this regard incentive energy policies e g voluntary agreements and subsidies have been applied more than others in the last decade furthermore most of the reviewed studies emphasize energy price reform as an effective practical policy while a few analytical methods can be seen to help policy makers determine the optimal levels of decision variables finally according to the state of the art analysis the authors provide some novel recommendations to improve the performance of ieeps using some restrictive policies on the negative impacts of rebound effects

barriers to energy efficiency in industrial bottom up energy demand models a review the goal of this paper is to review bottom up models for industrial energy demand with a particular focus on their capability to model barriers to the adoption of energy efficient technologies the integration of barriers into the models is an important prerequisite for a more detailed and realistic modeling of policies for energy efficiency particularly with the emergence of more and more varying policy instruments it also becomes crucial for the models to take account of these policies as well as the barriers they address in a more realistic way our review revealed that despite the broadly evident existence of market failures and barriers for energy efficient technologies they are only partly and in a rather aggregated form considered in today s bottom up models the state of the art bottom up model is based on an explicit representation of the technology stock and considers the costs of energy efficiency options in detail but with regard to barriers most models only make use of an aggregated approach like an adjusted discount rate while some models do not even consider technology costs and energy prices but instead use exogenous technology diffusion rates other more advanced models took first steps towards considering barriers in more detail the latter allows differentiation between multiple parameters that influence technology adoption still even in the most advanced models only a few of the observed barriers are explicitly considered at the same time new approaches to considering barriers like uncertainty or the slow spread of information are being developed in other disciplines we conclude the paper by summarizing promising ways to improve representation of barriers in bottom up models