landlords versus tenants information asymmetry and mismatched preferences for home energy efficiency abstract new zealand homes are poorly insulated by international standards there are government subsidies available for people to improve the energy efficiency of their homes but uptake has been relatively low among owners of rental properties this paper presents the results of a choice experiment used to investigate the preferences of home owners and tenants for insulation and heating upgrades the responses indicate that landlords may underestimate how cold their rental properties are in winter considering the level of discomfort reported by tenants median willingness to pay wtp for improved insulation by landlords is only 50 70 of owner occupier values landlords are willing to pay more for a heating appliance than any other retrofit option in contrast tenants have a low wtp for the heating appliance and would prefer under floor insulation tenants express a willingness to pay higher rent in exchange for improved energy efficiency at a rate that would appear to make such upgrades economic for the landlord information asymmetry and lack of appropriate market signals may be a large part of the reason why many landlords are not willing to pay market prices for energy efficiency upgrades

decarbonizing residential building energy a cost effective approach abstract given the problem of climate change the world economy must eventually switch to carbon neutral energy in this study we present a cost effectiveness approach given a goal of decarbonization the objective is to accomplish this at minimum cost for residential building energy we show that total cost is minimized by equating marginal cost of building energy conserved with marginal cost of obtaining carbon free energy where we express costs of both in dollars per kwh we describe how the cost of solar photovoltaic energy provides an upper bound on the marginal cost of carbon free energy and thus an upper bound on marginal cost of conserved energy one should not necessarily spend more on energy conservation than the cost of photovoltaic energy though there are several caveats a case study from vermont usa illustrates these principles and implementation issues with marginal analysis of energy conservation from a policy perspective the principles presented suggest that either carbon taxes or carbon limits could be used to decarbonize building energy at minimum cost but that approaches using renewable energy subsidies or prescriptive building codes result in greater decarbonization costs to society this suggests that new policy approaches be adopted

cost benefit assessment of energy efficiency investments accounting for future resources savings and risks in the australian residential sector this article focuses on the impact of the discount rate on cost benefit assessment of investment options for residential building efficiency an integrated thermal modeling life cycle costing approach is applied to an extensive sample of dominant house designs for australian conditions the relative significance of predicted thermal performance and the applied discount rate on the present value of energy savings from alternative investment scenarios is investigated costs and benefits are also evaluated at the economy wide scale including carbon pricing considerations and for a test case household faced with alternative investment options at the point of construction the influence of the applied discount rate on produced cost benefit calculations is investigated as is the interaction between critical cost benefit input parameters findings support that the discounting framework is the primary driver of difference in estimates about costs and benefits of higher standards of efficiency in the residential sector results demonstrate that agreement on a low discount rate based on sustainability principals would prioritise those projects with significant environmental benefits

risk aversion and willingness to pay for energy efficient systems in rental apartments abstract this paper uses a random utility model to estimate consumers valuation of energy efficient insulation and ventilation systems in rental apartments given consumers limited experience in residential buildings and the perceived uncertainty about their comfort benefits and resulting energy savings these relatively new technologies might be undervalued by risk averse consumers using the concept of certainty equivalence this paper proposes a model to assess the consumers risk aversion for adopting energy efficient systems these systems are treated as risky assets while conventional commodities are assumed to be risk free the curvature of the utility function is interpreted as a measure of aversion to perceived risks as opposed to explicit risks measured by observed variances the proposed formulation is applicable in stated preference data with qualitative variables the model is applied to data from a choice experiment conducted among 264 apartment tenants in switzerland the estimated curvatures reject the risk neutrality hypothesis the range of the estimated risk premiums suggests that risk considerations remain a central issue in dealing with energy efficiency in residential buildings the analysis also indicates that assuming same risk attitudes toward new and conventional systems could bias the estimates of the willingness to pay especially when the system is comprised of several components

exploring the potential for energy conservation in french households through hybrid modeling although the building sector is recognized as having major potential for energy conservation and carbon dioxide emissions mitigation conventional bottom up and top down models are limited in their ability to capture the complex economic and technological dynamics of the sector this paper introduces a hybrid framework developed to assess future household energy demand in france res irf a bottom up module of energy consumption for space heating has several distinctive features i a clear separation between energy efficiency i e investment in energy efficient technologies and sufficiency i e changes in the utilization of energy consuming durables which allows the rebound effect to be assessed ii the inclusion of barriers to energy efficiency in the form of intangible costs consumer heterogeneity parameters and the learning by doing process iii an endogenous determination of retrofitting which represents trade offs between retrofit quantity and quality subsequently res irf is linked to the imaclim r computable general equilibrium model this exercise shows that compared to a 37 reduction in final energy demand achievable in business as usual in existing dwellings an additional reduction of 14 could be achieved if relevant barriers to efficiency and sufficiency were overcome

economic analysis of upgrading aging residential buildings in china based on dynamic energy consumption and energy price in a market economy abstract this article employed a standard lcc to conduct economic analysis of upgrading the aging residential buildings in china according to the current situation an interest rate of 6 an inflation rate of 3 an increase rate of annual energy savings of 2 and an increase rate of electricity price of 2 were assumed in the method the results indicated that only relying on gradually increasing electricity price and governments subsidies was not enough after detailed analysis of the energy saving measures and the distribution of all benefits from building energy retrofit it was found that actually only 1 3 of original cost was spent only for energy savings the second 1 3 for both energy savings and good facade appearance and occupants should share the last 1 3 because even if without energy retrofit they would have to pay the part too the corresponding results proved that the first 1 3 of investment cost could be drawn back within the residue life cycle and so the investment could be accepted in a sheer market economy in the end a model about distribution of investment cost of and benefits was proposed to adapt the market economy to overcome the financial problems in china

heat savings and heat generation technologies modelling of residential investment behaviour with local health costs abstract the trade off between investing in energy savings and investing in individual heating technologies with high investment and low variable costs in single family houses is modelled for a number of building and consumer categories in denmark for each group the private economic cost of providing heating comfort is minimised the private solution may deviate from the socio economical optimal solution and we suggest changes to policy to incentivise the individuals to make choices more in line with the socio economic optimal mix of energy savings and technologies the households can combine their primary heating source with secondary heating e g a woodstove this choice results in increased indoor air pollution with fine particles causing health effects we integrate health cost due to use of woodstoves into household optimisation of heating expenditures the results show that due to a combination of low costs of primary fuel and low environmental performance of woodstoves today included health costs lead to decreased use of secondary heating overall the interdependence of heat generation technology and heat saving choice is significant the total optimal level of heat savings for private consumers decrease by 66 when all have the option to shift to the technology with lowest variable costs

economic analysis of energy saving renovation measures for urban existing residential buildings in china based on thermal simulation and site investigation abstract energy saving renovations of existing residential buildings have proven to be very helpful in alleviating the pressure of energy shortages and co 2 emission but an economic analysis of the measures by using a life cycle cost lcc method is very important and necessary to determine whether to implement them or not based on thermal simulation and site investigation the paper uses one urban existing residential building in hangzhou city of china as the subject building and analyzes the economic benefits from the energy saving renovation measures through the lcc method the findings clearly show that the investigation of the factual electricity consumption of the subject building is very important to predict accurately the energy saving effects and financial benefits of the measures for the building because of the great discrepancy between in fact and in thermal simulation of the heating and cool loads and the too cheap electricity price may hamper the development of energy saving implementations in residential sector in china

subjective discount rates in the general population and their predictive power for energy saving behavior why do people sometimes refrain from saving energy even if it would pay off in monetary terms subjective discount rates present one possible explanation for this lack of foresight but little is known about their level and reliability in the general population with regard to behavior persons with lower discount rates are expected to accept additional costs upfront more readily than those with higher discount rates based on a representative nation wide study the swiss environmental survey 2007 and a follow up survey our analyses reveal that on average subjective discount rates are well above market interest rates and moderately stable over a time interval of four years income and education are negatively correlated with discount rates contrary to expectations we did not find convincing support for an impact of discount rates on energy saving behavior

what determines eu decision making needs power or both this paper examines the determinants of power in the council of the european union it argues that quantitative power indices stemming from voting theory provide a good description of the actual distribution of power among eu members of course we cannot directly verify the accuracy of such indices since it is impossible to measure power directly instead we evaluate whether these power measures explain a quantifiable manifestation of the exercise of power namely members shares of eu budget allocation as an alternative explanation of the eu budget we also consider a needs view of the budget where members allocations are determined by principles of solidarity our empirical analysis is based on 1976 2001 data on the patterns of the eu budget shares and on measures of each member state s needs and political power our results indicate that at least 60 of the budget expenditures can be attributed to selfish power politics and the remaining 40 to the declared benevolent eu budget policies however when we apply specific voting power measures that allow correlated preferences and cooperative voting patterns between the member states our estimates indicate that the power politics view can explain as much as 90 of the budget shares we conclude that power politics can explain a major part of the council decisions and that correlated preferences and voting cooperation between eu countries potentially play significant roles in eu decision making heikki kauppi and mika widgren

improved price indexes for real estate measuring the course of swedish housing prices this paper presents an improved methodology for estimating asset prices for real estate and other durables the method is used to analyze house price dynamics by exploiting an unusually rich and detailed body of data extensive descriptive and financial information on every house sale in sweden during a 12 year period the results confirm the importance of many aspects of quality in affecting the course of housing prices as well as the role of individual specific and idiosyncratic aspects of housing the results are compared with the price trends produced by more primitive methods and published by official sources q 1998 academic press

modeling energy technology choices which investment analysis tools are appropriate abstract a variety of tools from modern investment theory appear to hold promise for unraveling observed energy technology investment behavior that often appears anomalous when analyzed using traditional investment analysis methods this paper reviews the assumptions and important insights of the investment theories most commonly suggested as candidates for explaining the apparent energy technology investment paradox the applicability of each theory is considered in the light of important aspects of energy technology investment problems such as sunk costs uncertainty and imperfect information the theories addressed include the capital asset pricing model the arbitrage pricing theory and the theory of irreversible investment enhanced net present value methods are also considered the relevance of the capital asset pricing model and the arbitrage pricing theory given the special characteristics of energy technology investment decisions appears limited to the value of the theories conceptual insights in contrast the theory of irreversible investment and enhanced net present value are found to provide more useful modeling and analysis methods each capable of providing important insights into the energy technology investment paradox

residential bioenergy heating a study of consumer perceptions of improved woodstoves abstract consumers choices play a key role for the development of biomass heating in the residential sector the city of oslo has granted subsidies to households who change to new improved low emission woodstoves the purpose of this study is to expand the knowledge about users experiences and attitudes to residential biomass heating an adapted model of the theory of planned behavior was used to model households inclination to continue using their woodstoves for heating more than 800 questionnaires were collected from households that recently had invested in an improved woodstove the respondents were satisfied with the new woodstoves the respondents also considered themselves competent to use and maintain the stove and few had problems acquiring fuelwood further analyses showed that the intention to continue to use the new woodstove depends on economic benefits heating performance perceived time and effort to operate the stove environmental effects of heating as well as perceived subjective norm the results imply that when marketing a modern technology for bioenergy heating both public authorities and producers should consider issues related to the users perception of subjective norm such as perceived status of using bioenergy or environmental concerns when designing campaigns to promote the use of woodstoves

small distributed generation versus centralised supply a social cost benefit analysis in the residential and service sectors abstract this paper aims at measuring the social benefits of small chp distributed generation dg in the residential and service sectors we do this by comparing the social costs of decentralised and centralised supplies simulating ideal situations in which any source of allocative inefficiencies is eliminated this comparison focuses on assessing internal and external costs the internal costs are calculated by simulating the optimal prices of the electricity and gas inputs the external costs are estimated by using and elaborating the results of the dissemination process of the externe project one of the most recent and accurate methodologies in this field the analysis takes into account the main sources of uncertainty about the parameter values including uncertainty about external cost estimations despite these sources of uncertainty the paper concludes that centralised supply is still preferable to small dg in fact the overall range of dg social competitiveness is restricted even considering further remarkable improvements in dg electrical efficiency and investment costs the results are particularly unfavourable for the residential sector whereas in the service sector the performance of dg technologies is slightly better

the economic impact of energy saving retrofits of residential and public buildings in croatia abstract the purpose of this paper is to estimunate the impact of energy saving investment in residential and public buildings in croatia for the period 2015 2020 the aim is to assess the overall socio economic impact of energy saving renovation measures defined in croatian strategic documents in terms of the direct indirect and induced growth of gross value added employment and government revenues an estimate of the avoided costs of air pollution is also included the overall economic impact assessment is based on an input output methodology from the point of view of individual investors the benefits in terms of reduced future expenses related to energy products are usually below energy efficient renovation investment costs making an investment financially viable only if government support is provided if the benefits for society as a whole are included energy efficient renovation could be assessed as viable even in the short run energy saving retrofits of residential and public buildings positively contribute to economic growth employment and protection of the environment because of economic growth the tax revenues induced by these investments could compensate for government expenditures and the overall impact on the public deficit is expected to be neutral even in the short run

economic potential of energy efficient retrofitting in the swiss residential building sector the effects of policy instruments and energy price expectations the aim of this paper is to analyse the profitability of energy efficient retrofit investments in the swiss residential building sector from the house owner s perspective different energy price expectations policy instruments such as subsidies income tax deduction and a carbon tax as well as potential future cost degression of energy efficiency measures were taken into account the discounted cash flow method was used for the investment analysis of different retrofit packages applied to a model building scheduled for renovation i e a single family house constructed between 1948 and 1975 the results show that present swiss policy instruments push investments for energy efficient retrofitting to profitability cost degression has a minor significance for investment profitability however the most relevant factor for the investment analysis is the expected energy price expecting a future fuel oil price at the level of 2005 efficiency investments are close to profitability even without policy support if higher energy prices were expected energy efficient retrofitting would be an attractive investment opportunity

the rationale for energy efficiency policy assessing the recognition of the multiple benefits of energy efficiency retrofit policy the rationale for energy efficiency policy can be framed in terms of a variety of different benefits this paper considers how different benefits have been used within the overall rationale for energy efficient retrofit policy in different contexts we posit that different rationales may be used for the same policy response and that the form of rationale used may affect the design delivery or the level of policy support with different rationales making it easier to account for different results considering retrofit policy in the contexts of the uk germany new zealand and ireland we characterise policy rationale in each case assessing what the key perceived benefits have been and whether they have changed over time the analysis identifies some marked differences between cases with the recognition of benefits and the ensuing policy rationale resulting from a complex mix of political social and economic influences we find that recognition of multiple benefits may not equate with multiplied policy support and instead it is more likely that different rationales will have relevance at different times for different audiences the findings highlight that alongside evidence for policy it is important to also consider how the overall rationale for policy is eventually framed

markets for energy efficiency exploring the implications of an eu wide tradable white certificate scheme recent developments in european energy policy reveal an increasing interest in implementing the so called tradable white certificate twc schemes to improve energy efficiency based on three evaluation criteria cost effectiveness environmental effectiveness and distributional equity this paper analyses the implications of implementing a european wide twc scheme targeting the household and commercial sectors using a bottom up model quantitative results show significant cost effective potentials for improvements ca 1400 twh in cumulative energy savings by 2020 with the household sector gas and space heating representing most of the twc supply in terms of eligible sector fuel and energy service demand respectively if a single market price of negative externalities is considered a societal costeffective potential of energy savings above 30 compared to the baseline is observed in environmental terms the resulting greenhouse gas emission reductions are around 200mt co2 eq by 2010 representing nearly 60 of the eu kyoto target from the qualitative perspective several embedded ancillary benefits are identified e g employment generation improved comfort level reduced fuel poverty security of energy supply whereas an eu wide twc increases liquidity and reduces the risks ofmarket power autarky compliance strategies may be expected in order to capture co benefits nationally cross subsidies could occur due to investment recovery mechanisms and there is a risk that effects may be regressive for low income households assumptions undertaken by the modelling approach strongly indicate that high effectiveness of other policy instruments is needed for an eu wide twc scheme to be cost effective less

empirical estimates of the direct rebound effect a review beginning with william stanley jevons in 1865 a number of authors have claimed that economically justified energy efficiency improvements will increase rather than reduce energy consumption jevons paradox is extremely difficult to test empirically but could have profound implications for energy and climate policy this paper summarises and critiques the arguments and evidence that have been cited in support of jevons paradox focusing in particular on the work of len brookes and harry saunders it identifies some empirical and theoretical weaknesses in these arguments highlights the questions they raise for economic orthodoxy and points to some interesting parallels between these arguments and those used by the biophysical school of ecological economics while the evidence in favour of jevons paradox is far from conclusive it does suggest that economy wide rebound effects are larger than is conventionally assumed and that energy plays a more important role in driving productivity improvements and economic growth than is conventionally assumed 2008 elsevier ltd all rights reserved

prospects of india s energy and emissions for a long time frame abstract for any nation sector wise forecasts of energy demand and emissions are becoming valuable elements in devising its national and international policies relating to energy security local environment and global climate change it is in this context that this work attempts to forecast india s possible energy demands and emissions adopting a key indicator approach on least cost generation expansion optimization methodology for a long time frame this study developed key indicators for useful energy demand for end use sectors such as industry commerce and residence key indicators for transport sector and non energy use sectors were developed on transport mobility demand and end use fuel demand the main drivers of these key indicators are socio economic parameters this work was conducted in a linear programmed lp times g5 model on times modeling framework for model horizon of 1990 2100 by the end of the 21st century india s energy demands are projected to be about 1825 mtoe of primary energy 1263 mtoe of final energy consumption 4840 twh of electricity generations 723 mtoe of energy import and 4414 mt of co2 emissions

zero energy homes are they economically viable whilst net zero energy homes are espoused in many policy circles and many bespoke examples have been constructed to demonstrate their technical feasibility there is a scarcity of evidence demonstrating such a standard would be economically rational particularly for large scale housing development where orientation and aspect may not always be optimal drawing on energy monitoring evidence and construction economics associated with a nearly zero energy housing estate in adelaide australia this paper explores the economic feasibility of the net zero energy home policy in warm temperate climates the results demonstrate that using economic tools and assumptions typically applied for building energy regulatory policy changes net societal economic benefits significantly outweigh costs the clear economic outcomes combined with expected health and productivity benefits from improved levels of thermal comfort should provide security to policy makers to progress home energy standards towards net zero energy performance

marginal costs and co benefits of energy efficiency investments the case of the swiss residential sector abstract key elements of present investment decision making regarding energy efficiency of new buildings and the refurbishment of existing buildings are the marginal costs of energy efficiency measures and incomplete knowledge of investors and architects about pricing co benefits and new technologies this paper reports on a recently completed empirical study for the swiss residential sector it empirically quantifies the marginal costs of energy efficiency investments i e additional insulation improved window systems ventilation and heating systems and architectural concepts for the private sector first results on the economic valuation of co benefits such as improved comfort of living improved indoor air quality better protection against external noise etc may amount to the same order of magnitude as the energy related benefits are given the cost benefit analysis includes newly developed technologies that show large variations in prices due to pioneer market pricing add on of learning costs and risk components of the installers based on new empirical data on the present cost situation and past techno economic progress the potential of future cost reduction was estimated applying the experience curve concept the paper shows for the first time co benefits and cost dynamics of energy efficiency investments of which decision makers in the real estate sector politics and administrations are scarcely aware

evaluation of the impact of environmental public policy measures on energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in the french residential sector a cut in energy consumption by 2050 to reach 50 kwhpe m2 year and reduce ghg emissions by 75 are important objectives of environmental policy in france the residential sector represents a significant potential source of energy savings in this paper our main objective is to construct a simulation model and to evaluate the impact of environmental public policy measures we model energy consumption and ghg emissions the decision to invest in energy saving renovations and the dynamics of the housing stock particular attention is paid to household investment decisions regarding home renovation to generate the dynamics and the structure of the housing stock through 2050 we introduce socioeconomic variables that alter the number of renovations and new constructions this study has three major outputs first we estimate the energy consumption and ghg emissions of the residential sector in france through 2050 second we study the impact of environmental public policy measures lastly we propose different means to reach the objectives the results show that while current policies are effective they are not sufficient to reach the objectives

economic analysis of a low carbon path to 2050 a case for china india and japan abstract this article studies the economic implications that different global ghg emission mitigation policies may have in the major asian economies namely china india and japan the analysis covers the period 2010 2050 and is performed by means of a recursive dynamic computable general equilibrium model gem e3 four scenarios are investigated the three standard ame scenarios and a fourth scenario with a ghg emission reduction path compatible with the 2 c target reducing global ghg emissions in 2050 by 50 relative to 2005 the scenarios are compared with the already adopted and announced policies of the respective countries in the context of the copenhagen pledges for 2020 and their long term objectives in 2050 we further discuss the role of energy efficiency measures and zero carbon power technologies in order to reach the long term 2 c target we find that postponing significant emission reductions may not accrue an economic benefit over time whereas it may increase some risks by possibly overstretching the reliance on zero carbon technologies

building energy efficiency a research branch made of paradoxes abstract the literature dealing with building energy efficiency has long since debated about the possible occurrence of the so called jevons paradox in a nutshell benefiting from energy savings due to transition to high performance buildings may the same savings cause a kind of rebound effect by acting as an incentive to increase consumptions on closer inspection this is not the only paradox affecting the research branch that focuses on the energy used by the buildings and the building industry a second paradox is that investments in energy efficient solutions may contribute to energy price control which in turn lends itself to make the same investments not profitable a third paradox lies in the need to adopt energy intensive materials in order to achieve substantial energy savings in operation hence sometimes we just substitute a certain amount of operating energy with a more or less commensurate amount of embodied energy here we argue that the joint consideration of the paradoxes mentioned above should not be neglected since it brings with itself several implications needing to be disentangled whether we aim to get further enhancements in this disciplinary field

econometric estimates of scale economies in canadian manufacturing an econometric analysis of cost scale relationships in 147 canadian manufacturing industries using plant level data for 1979 is presented the results suggest that there are increasing returns to scale in a majority of industries but also that a significant fraction of industries are characterized by constant returns the cost penalty associated with sub optimal scale amounts to roughly 4 of the total manufacturing costs finally although wage rates and product diversity have no significant impact on unit cost in most industries some industries are affected when the usual cross sectional assumption of constant wage rates and product diversity is relaxed

variation of wage rates with size of establishment abstract using census of manufactures data at the four digit level wages rise with establishment size especially in the upper ranges of establishment sizes

an assessment of household electricity load curves and corresponding co2 marginal abatement cost curves for gujarat state india gujarat a large industrialized state in india consumed 67 twh of electricity in 2009 10 besides experiencing a 4 5 demand supply short fall residential sector accounted for 15 of the total electricity consumption we conducted load research survey across 21 cities and towns of the state to estimate residential electricity load curves share of appliances by type and usage patterns for all types of household appliances at utility geographic appliance income and end use levels the results indicate that a large scope exists for penetration of energy efficient devices in residential sector marginal abatement cost mac curves for electricity and co2 were generated to analyze relative attractiveness of energy efficient appliance options results indicate that up to 7 9 twh of electricity can be saved per year with 6 7 mt co2 emissions mitigation at negative or very low co2 prices of us 10 t co2 despite such options existing their penetration is not realized due to myriad barriers such as financial institutional or awareness and therefore cannot be taken as baseline options for co2 emission mitigation regimes

internalisation of external costs in the polish power generation sector a partial equilibrium model this paper presents a methodical framework which is the basis for the economic analysis of the mid term planning of development of the polish energy system the description of the partial equilibrium model and its results are demonstrated for different scenarios applied the model predicts the generation investment and pricing of mid term decisions that refer to the polish electricity and heat markets the current structure of the polish energy sector is characterised by interactions between the supply and demand sides of the energy sector the supply side regards possibilities to deliver fuels from domestic and import sources and their conversion through transformation processes public power plants public chp plants industry chp plants and municipal heat plants represent the main producers of energy in poland demand is characterised by the major energy consumers i e industry and construction transport agriculture trade and services individual consumers and export the relationships between the domestic electricity and heat markets are modelled taking into account external costs estimates the volume and structure of energy production electricity and heat prices emissions external costs and social welfare of different scenarios are presented results of the model demonstrate that the internalisation of external costs through the increase in energy prices implies significant improvement in social welfare

determinants of residential space heating expenditures in great britain in great britain several policy measures have been implemented in order to increase energy efficiency and reduce carbon emissions in the domestic sector this could for example be achieved by improving space heating efficiency and thus decreasing heating expenditure however in order to efficiently design and implement such policy measures a better understanding of the determinants affecting heating expenditure is needed in this paper we examine the following determinants socio economic factors building characteristics heating technologies and weather conditions in contrast to most other studies we use panel data to investigate household demand for heating in great britain our data sample is the result of an annual set of interviews with more than 5000 households starting in 1991 and ending in 2005 the sample represents a total of 64 000 observations over the fifteen year period our aim is to derive price and income elasticities both for britain as a whole and for different types of household our results suggest that differences exist between owner occupied and renter households these households react differently to changes in income and prices our results also imply that a number of socio economic criteria have a significant influence on heating expenditure independently of the fuel used for heating understanding the impacts of different factors on heating expenditure and impact differences between types of household is helpful in designing target oriented policy measures

modelling energy savings in the danish building sector combined with internalisation of health related externalities in a heat and power system optimisation model abstract a substantial untapped energy saving potential rests in the building sector and is expected to play an important role in achieving reduction of environmental impacts of energy in order to utilise this potential effective policy measures need to be adopted to remove the existing barriers and create incentives for that purpose the cost effective energy saving options together with an optimal level of savings and expected environmental benefits have to be identified the paper reports on a study that analyses these questions by including heat saving measures in buildings into an energy system optimisation model of the danish heat and power sector the achieved optimal level of heat savings reaches 11 of projected heat demand in 2025 under the model assumptions moreover the analysis reveals the importance of considering energy conservation options in a system wide perspective furthermore the results suggest that changes in the energy generation sector are the prime driver behind the reduction of environmental externalities of energy heat savings in buildings play only a small role under model assumptions

work disutility and compensating differentials estimation of factors in the link between wages and firm size this paper investigates the positive wage firm size relationship using a sample of workers performing the same jobs in different sized firms controlling for skill differences wages are still found to be higher in larger firms using an estimate of the marginal rate of substitution of income for leisure as a measure of job disutility the difference in wages between large and small firms is found to be greater than the difference in disutility ruling out compensating differentials as the sole cause of the wage size relationship hence the argument that labor extracts some of the higher profits of larger firms is plausible

flexible integration emu and relative voting power in the eu this paper studies the implications offlexible integration in the european union itanalyses the voting power of member states in thecouncil of ministers when differently sized subgroupsof the eu are set up european monetary union isreferred to as the most important example of flexibleintegration the banzhaf index is calculated to studythe distribution of voting power in the decisionmaking process according to the stability and growthpact the results show considerable fluctuations especially for smaller countries in relative votingpower the latter being defined as the relationbetween voting power and relative voting weight

value for money in energy efficiency retrofits in ireland grant provider and grant recipients abstractthe sustainable energy authority of ireland seai administers the better energy homes scheme to provide a financial incentive for home owners to engage in energy efficiency retrofits this study analyses data from the scheme and building energy rating data for participants to the scheme to examine the value for money achieved by households in addition this research identifies which retrofit combinations provide greatest value for money in terms of energy efficiency gains for the grant provider we utilize an error in variables approach to model the variation in benefits accruing to households of varying characteristics we find that household and grant provider surplus can be maximized in the short term by retrofitting less energy efficient and larger homes timber or steel frame homes and houses rather and apartments the types of retrofits leading to the greatest surplus for both household and grant provider include cavity wall insulation paired with either a boiler with heating controls or

demand for space heating in apartment blocks measuring effects of policy measures aiming at reducing energy consumption abstract panel data covering the period 1984 1995 on energy consumption and technical characteristics of apartment blocks from denmark are analysed in order to measure effects of policy measures aimed at reducing the consumption of energy for space heating results indicate that building regulations have been important in reducing energy consumption in new buildings furthermore conditional price responses are estimated to be relatively small or non existent indicating small short run effects of fuel taxes on energy consumption in apartment blocks finally a consultancy scheme implemented with the purpose of improving knowledge about the potential for energy savings is found to have had moderate effects

achieving affordable housing through energy efficiency strategy abstract cooperation between public and private sector has achieved a remarkable widespread in the italian context over the last two decades nevertheless the increasing difficulty in accessing the capital market and the rising cost of funding sources both noticeable over the past few years led to a slowdown of public private partnership ppp initiatives meanwhile the community is expressing new needs to be satisfied such as the conversion of brownfields the recovery of housing stock dating back to former times as well as the refurbishment of public offices or schools emerging priorities include the supply of affordable dwellings for low to medium income households this essay aims to examine a case study in which ppp and buildings energy efficiency have been successfully combined in order to jointly contribute to the achievement of a social housing settlement thanks to energy efficiency measures concerning building envelope insulation heating system and other installations the agreed rent results far higher than social rent of protected tenancies and furthermore above the range of fair rents characterising other regulated tenancies but mildly lower than market rents all this allows to achieve an equity yield rate satisfying from the perspective of a venture philanthropy investment

willingness to pay for energy saving measures in residential buildings this paper uses a choice experiment to evaluate the consumers willingness to pay for energy saving measures in switzerland s residential buildings these measures include air renewal ventilation systems and insulation of windows and facades two groups of respondents consisting respectively of 163 apartment tenants and 142 house owners were asked to choose between their housing status quo and each one of the several hypothetical situations with different attributes and prices the estimation method is based on a fixed effects logit model the results suggest that the benefits of the energy saving attributes are significantly valued by the consumers these benefits include both individual energy savings and environmental benefits as well as comfort benefits namely thermal comfort air quality and noise protection

external costs of energy do the answers match the questions looking back at 10 years of externe abstract while the claim for getting prices right is quite popular in conceptual policy papers the implementation of appropriate internalisation strategies is still hampered by a lack of reliable external cost data great expectations were set into the externe project a major research programme launched by the european commission at the beginning of the 1990s to provide a scientific basis for the quantification of energy related externalities and to give guidance supporting the design of internalisation measures after more than a decade of research the externe label became a well recognised standard source for external cost data looking back into the externe history the paper pursues how emerging new scientific insights and changing background assumptions affected external cost estimates and related recommendations to policy over time based on externe results the usefulness and inherent limitations of external cost estimates for impact categories like climate change or nuclear waste disposal is discussed the paper also gives examples on how external costs in spite of remaining uncertainties are successfully used to support environmental policy

perspectives on implementing energy efficiency in existing swedish detached houses in this study we first analyse energy efficiency measures in existing electrically heated houses in sweden from a societal economic perspective measures to a house envelopes and to energy supply chains are evaluated through a system analysis approach and we include the external costs of climate change and the effect of different swedish climatic zones we find that in a typical house from the 1970s conversion from electric heating is highly motivated since the mitigation cost of conversion is lower than the estimated external costs of emitted co2 both conversions and house envelope measures are more motivated in the northern part of the country where there is a higher heat demand a successful implementation of changes requires them to be attractive for consumers to adopt we therefore secondly analyse the economic conditions for swedish house owners to implement societal economic cost efficient measures we include the economic influence of an investment subsidy for heating system conversion an income tax deduction for changing windows customer electricity tax real estate tax and of the cost of purchased energy from different energy suppliers apart from the economics several other factors affect a house owner s decision to change heating systems we therefore thirdly analyse house owners perceptions of different heating supply alternatives based on the results of two comprehensive questionnaires these different perspectives are combined in a discussion whether the studied policy instruments encourage house owners to implement changes in accordance with the energy efficiency goals of decision makers we find that the investment subsidy could be useful to break the lock in effect of resistance heaters which house owners seemed to experience the electricity tax makes heating systems in line with national goals more competitive and efficiency measures to the house envelope more profitable the reduction of the electricity tax in the northern part of the country has the opposite effect also the increase in real estate tax when implementing energy efficiency measures gives a contradictory message the price differences between energy suppliers has a larger impact on the house owners economic conditions than both subsidies and tax rate changes and possibly also affect the house owner s attitudes towards various systems

improving the economics of building energy code change a review of the inputs and assumptions of economic models abstract building energy code change in australia and many other developed nations is subject to standardised economic tests with a net present value calculation at the heart of the economic analysis although many nations have introduced minimum energy efficiency standards for residential and commercial buildings increases in stringency have been hindered by limitations to the range of private and societal impacts typically incorporated in regulatory impact assessments given the policy move towards net zero energy homes a more comprehensive set of inputs and robust assumptions are needed to support further regulatory change yet the literature provides substantial evidence of many private and societal costs and benefits not commonly incorporated into the economic assessments that underpin regulatory change drawing on a case study of australian and uk residential regulatory change assessments this paper highlights limitations to the range of inputs and assumptions currently incorporated within the economic arguments applied during residential energy code change processes and presents a more comprehensive economic argument that could support further stringency improvements

understanding the uneven diffusion of building scale renewable energy systems a review of household local and country level factors in diverse european countries abstract this review focuses on renewable energy technology deployment in residential buildings which is part of current targets to develop net zero carbon buildings in europe and to promote the deployment of renewable energy we focus on the adoption of four technologies heat pumps solar photovoltaics solar thermal systems for domestic hot water and space heating and advanced biomass heating while there are several studies on households investment criteria a research gap exists because building owners across europe are quite diverse and the european markets exhibit different stages of maturity this article conducts a critical review of the literature on the diffusion of building scale renewable energy solutions in order to answer the following questions 1 to what extent can findings from studies on household adoption criteria be generalized from one country to another and 2 what insights does the literature offer on factors that might explain the differences in adoption patterns between european countries

the appeal of the green deal empirical evidence for the influence of energy efficiency policy on renovating homeowners abstract the green deal is a major new energy policy designed to support the diffusion of energy efficiency measures in uk homes this paper provides one of the first empirical examinations of the green deal s success in influencing homeowners renovation decisions using a repeated measures design in which households were questioned before and after the green deal s launch in january 2013 we assess the policy s success in raising awareness of energy efficiency in particular we test the effectiveness of the green deal s positioning to overcome barriers to renovation among homeowners already interested in or considering energy efficiency measures using the innovation decision process rogers 2003 as a conceptual framing of the renovation decision process we examine whether new information on energy efficiency provided by the green deal strengthened intentions and its antecedents we find that 1 energy efficiency is of potential appeal to all renovators regardless of their attitudes about energy efficiency 2 energy efficiency opportunities need to be identified in the early stages of renovation when homeowners are thinking about ways to improve their home and 3 homeowners intentions towards energy efficiency are weakened by uncertainty about financial benefits helping to explain the relatively slow uptake of the green deal to date

european economic decision making policy progress or paralysis voting in the european union european economic decision making policy progress or paralysis using methods that determine voting power this article examines the shifting powers of member countries within the council of ministers of the european union as well as its relationship with the commission the main focus is upon the effect of enlargement of the union on individual countries influence and how they are likely to react the main result is that facing a dilution of their power countries will increasingly have an incentive to link decisions into package deals one implication of this tendency is an erosion of the independence of the commission another implication is that the package deals will reflect to a larger extent pure national interests the article explores ways of alleviating this likely evolution the obvious idea of reducing the current overrepresentation of the smaller nations will not solve the problem one solution is to apply lower majority requirements the risk is that such a move would increase the commission s power in both initiating and pushing through its own agenda this risk can be mitigated by giving member states the ability to bypass the commission and initiate their own legislation such a move would probably also require strengthening the role of the european parliament as a counterbalance to the commission alan kirman and mika widgren

economic viability in thermal retrofit policies learning from ten years of experience in germany abstract germany aims to reduce co2 emissions by 80 by 2050 compared to 1990 levels and has merged this target with mandatory energy saving regulations for thermal renovation of existing homes the policy uses the criterion of economic viability whereby renovations must pay back through the space and water heating fuel savings they produce this paper explores the extent to which economically viable thermal renovations can contribute to the 80 goal based on an analysis of germany s experience it finds that the theoretical savings being achieved based on calculated pre and post renovation consumption are around 33 while actual savings based on measured consumption are likely to be around 25 the difference appears to be due to the effects of household behaviour further average measured consumption is estimated to be around 150 180 kwh m2a nationally and this would have to be reduced to 30 35 kwh m2a to meet the 80 policy goal this is beyond the limits of economically viable renovation technology which currently achieves around 100 kwh m2a the paper suggests that policymakers should de couple the criterion of economic viability from the 80 goal emphasise other reasons for renovating to economically viable levels and consider a more systematic approach to facilitate household behaviour change

modelling decisions on energy efficient renovations a review the buildings sector accounts for more than 30 of global greenhouse gas emissions despite the well known economic viability of many energy efficient renovation measures which offer great potential for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and meeting climate protection targets there is a relatively low level of implementation we performed a citation network analysis in order to identify papers at the research front and intellectual base on energy efficient renovation in four areas technical options understanding decisions incentive instruments and models and simulation the literature was reviewed in order to understand what is needed to sufficiently increase the number of domestic energy efficient renovations and to identify potential research gaps our findings show that the literature on energy efficient renovation gained considerable momentum in the last decade but lacks a deep understanding of the uncertainties surrounding economic aspects and non economic factors driving renovation decisions of homeowners the analysis indicates that the socio economic energy saving potential and profitability of energy efficient renovation measures is lower than generally expected it is suggested that this can be accounted for by the failure to understand and consider the underpinning influences of energy consuming behaviour in calculations homeowners decisions to renovate are shaped by an alliance of economic and non economic goals therefore existing incentives typically targeting the economic viability of measures have brought little success a deeper understanding of the decisions of homeowners is needed and we suggest that a simulation model which maps the decision making processes of homeowners may result in refining existing instruments or developing new innovative mechanisms to tackle the situation

the energy efficiency gap what does it mean abstract as renewed attention has been given by policy makers to energy conservation issues it has frequently been asserted that an energy efficiency gap exists between actual and optimal energy use the critical questions is how to define the optimal level of energy efficiency this paper seeks to disentangle some confusing strands of argument that are frequently brought to bear on this question by identifying the major conceptual issues that determine the set of feasible answers we identify five separate and distinct notions of optimality the economists economic potential the technologists economic potential hypothetical potential the narrow social optimum and the true social optimum each of these has associated with it a corresponding definition of the energy efficiency gap our analysis demonstrates that necessary preconditions for identifying the right measure of the energy efficiency gap include understanding and disentangling market failure and non market failure explanations for the gradual diffusion of energy efficient technologies

explaining the energy efficiency gap expected utility theory versus cumulative prospect theory abstract energy efficiency is one of the key factors in mitigating the impact of climate change and preserving non renewable resources although environmental and economic justifications for energy efficiency investments are compelling there is a gap between the observable and some notion of optimized energy consumption the so called energy efficiency gap behavioral biases in individual decision making have been resonated by environmental research to explain this gap to analyze the influence of behavioral biases on decisions upon energy efficiency investments quantitatively we compare expected utility theory with cumulative prospect theory on basis of a real world example we illustrate how the extent of the gap is influenced by behavioral biases such as loss aversion probability weighting and framing our findings indicate that cumulative prospect theory offers possible explanations for many barriers discussed in literature for example the size of the gap rises with increased risk and investment costs because behavioral biases are systematic and pervasive our insights constitute a valuable quantitative basis for environmental policy measures such as customer focused and quantitatively backed public awareness campaigns financial incentives or energy savings insurances in this vein this paper may contribute to an accelerated adaption of energy efficiency measures by the broader public