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

implications of energy subsidy reform in india abstract this paper analyses welfare impact of energy subsidy reform in india based on the data from 1970 71 to 2014 15 to this end auto regressive distributed lag ardl model and error correction model ecm have been estimated to quantify the short run and long run price and the income elasticity of various energy products the results show that the price elasticity of demand for all fossil fuels is low but the respective income elasticity is higher therefore an increase in the general price level caused by the subsidy reform will lead to the erosion of real income and will have related welfare implications in india the results also reveal that energy expenditure will obviously increase and hence energy consumption will decline depending upon the extent of the withdrawal of subsidy therefore policy makers in india while undertaking further reforms must ensure that the subsidy reaches to those who truly deserve so that the socioeconomic casualty of reforms can be minimized along with achieving fiscal goals

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

white certificate schemes economic analysis and interactions with the eu ets this paper examines the economic environmental and distributional impacts of an idealised tradable white certificate twc scheme and shows how the impacts are modified when the scheme operates in parallel with the eu emissions trading scheme eu ets it uses simple graphical techniques to assess whether a twc scheme will increase decrease or have an ambiguous effect on electricity demand wholesale and retail electricity prices carbon emissions and investment in energy efficiency paying particular attention to the interpretation of additionality

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 efficiency in china s iron and steel industry evidence and policy implications abstract currently the iron and steel industry isi accounts for more than 16 of china s total energy consumption improving energy efficiency ee and promoting energy savings in this industry have vital significance for china s further sustainable development using provincial panel data from 2000 to 2014 and meta frontier data envelopment analysis dea this paper investigates ee and the energy saving potential ep of china s isi by considering regional technology heterogeneities the results show that 1 from 2001 to 2014 ee in china s isi achieved significant improvement technological progress is the most powerful driving factor while the declines in scale efficiency and pure technical efficiency are two obstructive factors 2 the sources of energy inefficiency ei show distinct spatial difference characteristics ei in the eastern region mainly stems from scale inefficiency and pure technical inefficiency while that in the central and western regions stems from three aspects of scale inefficiency pure technical inefficiency and technology gap and 3 there is considerable ep in china s isi which represents nearly 80 of isi s current total energy consumption because the sources of ep vary across regions the focus of future work for china s regional isi should also vary

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

implementation of energy efficiency projects by dutch industry as potentials for energy savings are huge industry can provide a major contribution to energy savings goals this paper focuses on the energy savings realized under the dutch voluntary agreements in the period 2001 2011 participants in these schemes are obliged to plan and implement all measures with a payback period of less than 5 years this paper shows how many of these projects have been implemented and how much savings they generate our findings show that large differences exist in the realized savings between individual companies there is however no significant difference in savings observed between companies that participate in the emission trading system ets and companies that do not although it is impossible to disentangle the drivers behind the implementation of these projects the amount of savings suggest that at least part of them was implemented because of different energy policy instruments

energy rebound effect in china s industry an aggregate and disaggregate analysis abstract considering the crucial role of industrial sectors in energy conservation this paper investigates the impact of output growth on energy consumption in china s industrial sectors with an index decomposition model and the energy rebound effect in the industrial sectors with a panel data model using the annual data during 1994 2012 the empirical results indicate that first industrial output growth is proved to be the major factor in promoting industrial energy consumption while energy intensity reduction and structure shifts across industrial sub sectors play the dominant roles in slowing down industrial energy consumption second there does exist energy rebound effect in china s aggregate industry which ranges from 20 to 76 during 1995 2012 or 39 on average in particular the energy rebound effect in manufacturing is relatively smaller during the sample period i e 28 on average finally the energy rebound effect in both china s aggregate industry and manufacturing exhibit an overall decreasing trend over time

estimating energy conservation potential in china s energy intensive industries with rebound effect abstract the energy consumption of china s six most energy intensive sub industries is about half of the total national energy consumption and accounts for more than 70 of industrial energy consumption in recent years these six industries are capital and energy intensive and have a great impact on the energy consumption of china so they are directly related to the achievement of the energy conservation goal in the 13th five year plan this paper investigates the influential factors of energy consumption in the industries by employing the cointegration method and estimates the possible energy conservation potential considering energy rebound effect the results show that gdp and the scale of industries are the deterministic factors increasing energy consumption while r d intensity decreases it energy price has little impact on energy consumption the average energy rebound effect is calculated using the latent variable approach and the result is 90 75 considering energy rebound effect the energy conservation potential of china s energy intensive industries is 14 18 26 54 million tons of standard coal equivalent in 2020 and 44 64 80 72 million tons of standard coal equivalent in 2030

bridging the industrial energy efficiency gap assessing the evidence from the italian white certificate scheme the italian white certificate scheme is the main national policy instrument to incentivise energy efficiency of the industrial sector with savings from white certificates amounting to 2 of italy s 2012 primary energy consumption the mechanism sets binding energy saving targets on electricity and gas distributors with at least 50 000 clients and includes a voluntary opt in model for participation from other parties this paper investigates and assesses the elements of the scheme that help overcome several barriers to deliver industrial energy efficiency results from a survey conducted among leading experts indicate that the italian system provides a strong financial incentive to energy efficiency investments covering a significant share of investment costs and thus reducing payback time moreover the scheme fosters the development of energy service companies escos which are key to developing installing and arranging finance for projects on the ground in conjunction with other policies the mechanism also raises awareness of energy efficiency investment opportunities thus helping overcome the market failure of insufficient information core challenges remain including tackling regulatory uncertainty and improving access to finance

energy efficiency standards for refrigerators in brazil a methodology for impact evaluation abstract in brazil energy efficiency standards for cold appliances was established in 2007 a specified single set of meps minimum energy performance standards for refrigerators freezers and freezer refrigerators was implemented without evaluating its impacts and estimation of potential electricity savings this paper presents a methodology for assessing the impacts of the brazilian meps for cold appliances it uses a bottom up approach to estimate residential end use consumption and to evaluate the energy saving potential for refrigerators the household electricity consumption is projected by modeling appliance ownership using an econometric approach based on the recent household survey data a cost benefit analysis for more stringent standards is presented from the perspective of the society and electricity customers the results showed that even considering the current market conditions high discount rate for financing new efficient equipment some meps options are advantageous for customers the analysis also demonstrates significant cost effective saving potential from the society perspective that could reach 21 twh throughout the period of 2010 2030 about 25 of current residential consumption

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

the macro economic rebound effect and the uk economy abstract this paper examines the macroeconomic rebound effect for the uk economy arising from energy efficiency policies 2000 2010 using the macroeconomic model mdm e3 the literature distinguishes between three types of rebound effect direct indirect and economy wide the macroeconomic rebound effect considered here is the combination of the indirect and economy wide effects policies for the domestic business commercial and public and transport sectors of the economy are analysed for 2000 2010 overall the policies lead to a saving of about 8 of the energy which would otherwise have been used and a reduction in co2 emissions of 10 or 14 mtc by 2010 there are also favourable macroeconomic effects lower inflation and higher growth we find that the macroeconomic rebound effect arising from uk energy efficiency policies for the period 2000 2010 is around 11 by 2010 averaged across sectors of the economy when this is added to the assumed direct rebound effect of around 15 this gives a total rebound effect of around 26 arising from these policies thus the findings of the study support the argument that energy efficiency improvements for both consumers and producers stimulated by policy incentives will lead to significant reductions in energy demand and hence in greenhouse gas emissions

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

cross subsidy removal in electricity pricing in india abstract in india electricity price for agriculture is cross subsidized by the industries the indian government has started a process through which the extent of cross subsidization is gradually being reduced the idea is to replace the cross subsidization by 2030 and introduce a rate structure that will increase with the amount of electricity usage this paper uses the computable general equilibrium framework to evaluate the ex ante impact of these policy changes on the indian economy the paper finds that removal of cross subsidies will increase inflation particularly food inflation resulting in a decline in household incomes more so in rural areas replacing cross subsidies with a progressive rate structure will compensate for only a small part of the negative effects of the removal of cross subsidies four other policy options are also investigated targeting household incomes food inflation and general inflation most of these options do not work as the required increase in budget deficit is unlikely to be bearable to the government the only feasible option appears to be a direct price subsidy to agricultural sector in this case food prices are held down inflation is moderate and effect on household incomes is minimal

determinants of energy efficiency investments in the us this paper analyses decisions on energy efficiency ee investments by small and medium manufacturing enterprises in the us which have received assessment from the department of energy doe the results confirm the importance of payback time and investment costs as the main determining factors in deciding whether to invest in energy efficiency such investment recommendations are frequently not implemented even though they apparently entail major advantages and give rise to considerable energy savings the data show results which are compatible with a series of elementary valuation processes limited to availability of information far removed from other more academically ambitious methods such as net present value npv and the real options ro method the paper analyses the impact of the primary resource streams electricity natural gas other energy waste and others physical situation of firms in line with their geographical locations in different us states and changes over time from 1984 to 2009 ee investment decisions are analysed here using probit models whose parameters are calibrated on the basis of the information held in the industrial assessment centres iac database the results suggest various ideas to improve policies for promoting investment in ee specially the iac programme

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

national research funding and energy efficiency evidence from the national science foundation of china abstract the enhancement of energy efficiency is crucial to saving energy and reducing pollution emissions increasing investment in basic research may promote innovative energy technologies that improve energy efficiency in this paper the authors employ a stochastic frontier analysis to evaluate the impact of government funded research programs on improving national energy efficiency using estimates of energy efficiency based on the shepherd energy distance function the analysis used panel data from 30 provinces in china over the 2006 2015 period using the number of research programs funded by the national natural science foundation of china nsfc as a proxy the results show that research funding has a significantly negative effect on energy inefficiency the average energy efficiency continually increased from 2006 to 2015 in china while the energy efficiency in the eastern region was higher than that in the central and western regions in most years moreover a robustness test further validates and supports these findings some policy implications are proposed based on the empirical results

voluntary agreements with white certificates for energy efficiency improvement as a hybrid policy instrument in this paper we examine the implementation of a combined policy scheme that consists of a traditional instrument the voluntary agreements vas and an innovative one the white certificates whc the basic structure of this scheme is that energy suppliers who undertake an energy efficiency obligation under a white certificate scheme can make use of voluntary actions to enhance investments in innovative energy savings projects energy suppliers and other market parties can additionally or in parallel participate in voluntary agreements and set energy efficiency targets for fulfilling their voluntary agreement target these market parties can receive tax exemptions or receive white certificates that they can sell in the market transaction costs and baseline definition for demonstrating energy efficiency improvement deserve special attention this policy can assist a country to enhance energy efficiency improvement while it stimulates innovation cost effectiveness can be higher than the case of stand alone policy instruments since more financing options are available for more expensive projects nevertheless the added value of the scheme lies more in the implementation of innovative measures for enhanced energy efficiency furthermore market parties can discover more business opportunities in energy efficiency and establish a green image hence an integrated scheme should achieve higher political acceptability

the rebound effect in swedish heavy industry energy efficiency improvement eei benefits the climate and matters for energy security the potential emission and energy savings due to eei may however not fully materialize due to the rebound e

the rebound effect for heavy industry empirical evidence from china abstract energy efficiency improvement will reduce the effective price of energy services and hence at least partially mitigate original expected energy conservation therefore the magnitude of rebound effect is important for the design and timing of an effective energy conservation policy under the framework of translog cost share equations we estimates the direct rebound effect for heavy industry in china for the first time by conducting an empirical research on the relationship between the direct rebound effect and the ease with which energy services can substitute for other inputs additionally asymmetric price responses are specified in the model for the rebound effect estimation empirical results in our paper indicate that the rebound effect for heavy industry in china is about 74 3 this reveals that energy efficiency improvement can save energy to a certain degree since the rebound effect is less than 100 back fire but most of the expected reduction in heavy industry energy consumption is mitigated these findings prove that energy pricing reforms and energy taxes should be further implemented to achieve effective energy conservation in china s 12th five years plan

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

incentive mechanisms to promote energy efficiency programs in power distribution companies abstract power distribution companies discos play an important role in promoting energy efficiency hereafter ee mainly due to the fact that they have detailed information regarding their clients consumption patterns however under the traditional regulatory framework discos have disincentives to promote ee due to the fact that a reduction in sales also means a reduction in their revenues and profits most regulatory policies encouraging ee have some embedded payment schemes that allow financing ee programs in this paper we focus on these ee programs payment schemes that are embedded into the regulatory policies specifically this paper studies two models of the principal agent bi level type in order to analyze the economic effects of implementing different payment schemes to foster ee in discos the main difference between each model is that uncertainty in energy savings is considered by the electricity regulatory institution in only one of the models in terms of the results it is observed that in general terms it is more convenient for the regulator to adopt a performance based incentive mechanism than a payment scheme financing only the fixed costs of implementing ee programs however if the electricity regulatory institution seeks a higher level of minimum expected utility it is optimal to adopt a mixed system of compensation which takes into account the fixed cost compensation and performance based incentive payments

implied discount rate and payback threshold of energy efficiency investment in the industrial sector the industrial sector is responsible for about a third of the energy usage in the united states and there is significant energy saving potential from the industrial sector however the phenomenon of energy efficiency gap the scenario in which cost effective energy efficient technologies enjoy only limited market success appears frequently in the industrial sector this article tries to explain this efficiency gap in the industrial sector by empirically estimating the implied discount rates and payback thresholds industrial firms use to evaluate their energy efficiency investments using the industrial assessment centers iac database from 2002 to 2011 with more than 30 000 energy efficiency recommendations this article builds structural models of firms evaluation of an energy efficiency project the model results show that the implied discount rates of medium to small industrial firms range from 40 to 45 and the average payback threshold is about 9 months

green insurance subsidy for promoting clean production innovation abstract green insurance is introduced to advance green development in recent years and this article addresses the effects of insurance subsidy with game theory model some useful results are achieved first uncertainty deters firms innovation while both mature technology and high production efficiency stimulate firms innovation second interestingly green insurance cannot improve innovation and expect profits of firms but green insurance reduces risk finally both green insurance subsidy and governmental subsidy promotes firms innovation but green insurance subsidy owns lower risk than direct subsidy to innovate

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

an improved approach to estimate direct rebound effect by incorporating energy efficiency a revisit of china s industrial energy demand abstract the rebound effect or the response to energy efficiency improvement has drawn considerable attention from economists and policymakers however the magnitude remains quite controversial because of the differences in the definitions and methods being used originating from the definition of direct rebound effect we develop an improved approach incorporating energy efficiency the main advantages of the proposed approach are twofold first it enables us to estimate the demand elasticity of useful energy service with respect to energy service price the estimates are more consistent with the definition of rebound effect and are more effective second it decomposes direct rebound effect into substitution and output channels enabling us to further understand the microeconomic mechanisms applying this method we assess the direct energy rebound effect in china s industrial sectors we find that the direct rebound effect for the industry is 37 0 and the substitution and output channels contribute to 13 1 and 23 9 respectively substantial variations in the magnitudes and mechanisms occur by sector for heavy industry most energy rebound is induced by output expansion because of its sizeable cost decrease from efficiency improvements unlike heavy industry most energy rebound in light industry comes from substituting energy service for other inputs because firms in light industry are more flexible in adjusting production inputs our results provide evidences for the importance of energy efficiency measures and highlight the necessity of differentiated measures according to the sectoral characteristics

information inefficiency and willingness to pay for energy efficient technology a stated preference approach for china energy label abstract the paper examines the extent to which consumers willingness to pay for energy efficient room air conditioners may be altered by correcting the information inefficiency on the china energy label the data are collected from a discrete choice experiment with two alternatives variable speed and constant speed room air conditioners characterized by attributes of brand purchase price and energy grade three versions of the questionnaires with choice sets differing only in energy consumption indicators were distributed randomly to 1602 potential consumers in nanjing china and a sample of 1569 was obtained after dropping missing data the analysis with multinomial and mixed logit models reveal that the price premium that consumers are willing to pay for a variable speed room ac over a constant speed room ac increases significantly when energy consumption information becomes comparable and additional energy related information is provided furthermore the impact of information on wtp varies under different energy saving scenarios it is suggested that china energy label should correct information inefficiency by adopting same energy indicators for room acs with different technologies and providing energy consumption information based on different climate zones

technological progress and energy rebound effect in china s textile industry evidence and policy implications abstract although energy efficiency improvement can reduce energy consumption reduction of the effective price will also increase the demand for energy services part of this reduction is then offset because of the energy efficiency improvement the magnitude of this energy rebound effect is one of the important factors that must be considered in the formulation and implementation of energy policies the textile industry is a traditional pillar industry in china it is an important part of the national economy and contributes significantly to international trade this study uses the morishima elasticities of substitution mes model combined with asymmetric energy prices trans log cost function and other econometric methods to establish a framework to measure the rebound effect in china s textile industry the empirical results of this paper indicate that the rebound effect for china s textile industry is 20 991 this reveals that energy efficiency improvement is conducive for energy saving to a certain degree notwithstanding these results also prove that energy efficiency improvement is not the only way for china s textile industry to realize energy saving and emission reduction finally based on the analysis future policy priorities are suggested

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

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

who should administer energy efficiency programs the restructuring of the u s electricity industry created a crisis for ratepayer funded energy efficiency programs this paper briefly describes the reasons for the crisis and some of its consequences then the paper focuses on issues related to program administration and discusses the relative merits of entities utilities state agencies and non profit corporations that might be administrators four criteria are developed for choosing among program administration options compatibility with public policy goals effectiveness of the incentive structure ability to realize economies of scale and scope and contribution to the development of an energy efficiency infrastructure we examine one region the pacific northwest and three states new york vermont and connecticut which have made successful transitions to new governance and or administration structures attention is also given to california where large scale energy efficiency programs have continued to operate despite the fact that many of the key governance administration issues remain unresolved we observe that no single administrative structure for energy efficiency programs has yet emerged in the us that is clearly superior to all of the other alternatives we conclude that this is not likely to happen soon for three reasons first policy environments differ significantly among the states second the structure and regulation of the electric utility industry differs among the regions of the us third market transformation and resource acquisition two program strategies that were once seen as alternatives are increasingly coming to be seen as complements energy efficiency programs going forward are likely to include elements of both strategies but the administrative arrangements that are best suited to support market transformation may be different from the arrangements that are best for resource acquisition

energy supplier obligations and white certificate schemes comparative analysis of experiences in the european union abstract a number of member states of the european union eu have introduced market based policy portfolios based on quantified energy savings obligations on energy distributors or suppliers possibly coupled with certification of project based energy savings via white certificates and the option to trade the certificates or obligations the paper provides an up to date review and analysis of results to date of white certificate schemes in the eu in the eu supplier obligations and white certificate schemes have delivered larger savings than originally expected with obliged companies exceeding targets and in some cases at cost below what policy makers have anticipated supplier obligations foster the uptake of standardised energy efficiency actions often targeting smaller energy users residential sector lowering the transaction costs and contributing to market transformation the role of certificate trading is more ambiguous trading can bring benefits where the target is set sufficiently high with respect to the energy saving potential in the sectors covered theoretically trading may be better suited for broader systems with comprehensive coverage but even in smaller schemes trading may reduce the transaction costs of compliance for obliged actors without sufficient expertise on end use energy efficiency yet trading increases the administrative cost ratio of energy saving obligations

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

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

the impact of the rebound effect of the use of first generation biofuels in the eu on greenhouse gas emissions a critical review an important objective of the mandated blending of biofuel in conventional gasoline and diesel in the eu is reducing greenhouse gas ghg emissions an important assumption thereby is that biofuels replace the production and consumption of oil however recent literature challenges this assumption because an increased use of biofuels will lower oil prices and therefore result in increase crude oil consumption this so called rebound effect offsets the expected ghg emission saving effects of using biofuels a review of eight studies mainly on current and future us biofuel policies provides insights in the current state of research into this topic showing a wide range of values of the rebound effect of biofuel use depending among others on the biofuel policy the applied method and the model parameter assumptions generally estimated rebound effects are negative in the country where biofuel use is being promoted i e the use of 1 unit of biofuel reduces oil consumption by less than 1 unit units on energy basis the rebound effects in other countries are always positive biofuel use reduces oil consumption by less than 1 unit so the total fuel consumption is increasing the net global rebound effect is usually positive which means that ghg emissions savings are not achieved as much as usually is assumed or emissions may even increase own estimations with the global magnet computable general equilibrium model indicate a global rebound effect of the 10 biofuel blend mandate in the eu in the year 2020 of 22 30 i e the use of 1 unit of biofuel reduces global oil consumption by 0 78 0 70 units this means that ghg emissions will not be reduced as much as usually is assumed or may even increase these results show that rebound effects can significantly lower the effectiveness of biofuel policies in reducing ghg emissions

business strategy under institutional constraints evidence from china s energy efficiency regulations abstract this paper links theoretical perspectives from energy efficiency economics with those observed from corporate environmental strategy to develop a framework for explaining energy efficiency strategies by firms in response to national policies and local regulations in china the framework is refined through analytic generalization of 20 cases from four industries and four cities in jiangsu province and reveals two strategies 1 firms with moderate institutional pressure seek incremental competitiveness by adopting energy saving technologies which is reinforced by their informational organizational and financing capabilities and facilitated by voluntary policies and industrial competition 2 firms with survival risk or development constraints under regulation seek a position favored by local governments by replacing old plant and equipment with larger more efficient ones and contributing to the local community the chinese case studies reveal a strong institutional impact on firms choice of business strategies and particularly the positioning strategy the identified business strategies shed additional light on the effectiveness and implications of different policy instruments for energy efficiency

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

tariff regulation with energy efficiency goals we study the optimal tariff structure that could induce a regulated utility to promote energy efficiency by its customers given that it is privately informed about the effectiveness of its effort on demand reduction the regulator should optimally offer a menu of incentive compatible two part tariffs if the firm s energy efficiency activities have a high impact on demand reduction the consumer should pay a high fixed fee but a low per unit price approximating the tariff structure to a decoupling policy which strengthens the firm s incentives to pursue energy conservation instead if the firm s effort to adopt energy efficiency actions is scarcely effective the tariff is characterized by a low fixed fee but a high price per unit of energy consumed thus shifting the incentives for energy conservation on consumers the optimal tariff structure also depends on the cost of the consumer s effort in case the consumer can also adopt energy efficiency measures and on the degree of substitutability between the consumer s and the firm s efforts

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

decomposition of energy efficiency and energy saving potential in china a three hierarchy meta frontier approach abstract considering both regional heterogeneity and industrial heterogeneity this paper proposes a three hierarchy meta frontier data envelopment analysis dea to decompose energy efficiency and energy saving potential into three components i e industrial structure regional balance development and management based on this approach the paper then analyses the historical evolution and current status of energy efficiency in china the results show the following 1 from 2001 to 2015 mainland china s energy efficiency increased by a factor of 2 48 primarily because of technological progress and the optimization of its industrial structure 2 nonetheless the current energy efficiency in mainland china remains very low and energy inefficiency is as high as 0 5922 indicating that 59 22 of total energy consumption is invalidly used severe industrial structure inefficiency and regional balance development inefficiency are the two main factors responsible for the very low energy efficiency 3 by promoting industrial restructuring regional balance development and management improvement mainland china is expected to save respectively 13 67 24 54 and 61 73 of its current total invalid energy consumption based on the estimation results this paper formulates strategies to improve energy efficiency and save energy for china s provinces based on their specific situations considering not only the direction of industrial restructuring in both the short and long terms but also the path to improved energy efficiency in addition a brief discussion about the applicability and the preconditions for an application of the multi hierarchy meta frontier approach is given at the end of the paper

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

framing energy efficiency and renewable energy policies an international comparison between mexico and china abstract this essay compares national strategies on mitigation of ghg emissions for mexico and china this state centered analysis stresses the importance of the interaction between international commitments the disposition of internal interest of economy wide actors and the legacies of policy making and institutions particularly in relation to economic development and central local government relations this research does not attempt to classify institutions according to their effectives to foster climate change policies but rather explores specific circumstances for climate change policy making on developing countries contrary to international proposal to find a generic optimal policy choice the research explored the relevance of certain political and economic institutions that can be present in other national cases it shows that the legacies on liberalization and state retreat undermine the state ability to effectively engage with the economic actors on decisions and management likewise regular engagement with them undermines the state affinity towards pursuing economic efficient solutions the relevance of adequate system of incentives for local government to engage in an agenda that is by nature adopted by the central government

is certainty in carbon policy better than uncertainty abstract uncertainty in the strictness of carbon policy can have significant impacts on power generating firms capacity investment decisions and market outcomes we investigate the effects of this policy uncertainty on firms expected profits consumers surplus and firms cost for reaching a co 2 emission target our results derived from a game theoretical model and applied to realistic data indicate that uncertainty in the carbon policy induces more capacity investments in fossil and renewable technologies we find that it is optimal for firms with higher risk aversion to invest more in renewable technologies than their less risk averse rivals for policy makers our results suggest counter intuitively that retaining the flexibility to update emission targets whilst causing uncertainty in the carbon policy is beneficial this is because it provides higher expected consumer surplus and lower expected electricity price power generating firms are also better off under the policy uncertainty by having lower expected costs for reaching the emission goal and higher expected profits when firms risk aversions are low these results support the approach employed in european power markets to periodically update the co 2 emission cap depending on the prevailing circumstances rather than having certainty in the decrements of the caps over a longer time horizon our insights can help policy makers and firms to make better decisions by understanding how carbon policy uncertainty impacts the optimal capacity investments and how these investments might depend on the firms heterogeneity in risk aversion

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

linear production games with committee control limiting behaviour of the core we study the relation between the core of a given controlled committee lp game and the set of payoff vectors generated by shadow prices and core allocations of those simple games describing the control over the different resources the central problem we tackle is the convergence of the core of lp games with committee control to the set of competitive equilibria which we define as the set previously described as the number of players increases uniformly

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

welfare implication of reforming energy consumption subsidies abstract reforming energy consumption subsidies in particular for fossil fuels has been frequently referred to as a quick win policy to enhance environmental mitigation in addition the removal of such subsidies may release a sizeable portion of a country s national budget for use on more productive targets one of the most recognized challenges of such reform is selling the new energy prices to citizens particularly those with a more fragile purchasing power several empirical and technical studies have prescribed that the reform might be supported by a direct compensation mechanism in order to ensure feasibility this is what was done during the recent energy subsidy reform in iran however the compensation mechanism implemented in iran s reform was successful at the beginning but did not proceed as expected this has raised questions about the feasibility and sustainability of the direct compensation mechanism and even of the reform policy itself in this paper we consider a stylized model where direct compensation is the instrument proposed to restore consumers utility against increased energy prices we find that when prices of other goods are affected by the announced reform policy the feasibility of a subsidy reform critically depends on the value of certain parameters the initial subsidization rate the share of energy in the consumers bundle and the energy portion of price of other goods

estimation of global rebound effect caused by energy efficiency improvement abstract rebound effect refers to the phenomenon that the actual reduction in energy use and emissions is less than the expected reduction caused by an energy efficiency improvement due to induced behavior adjustment of relevant economic agents this article studies the global rebound effects on energy use and related emissions caused by an energy efficiency improvement we adopt a global computable general equilibrium cge model to design a scenario of energy efficiency improvement which is compared to a business as usual bau scenario to identify the global rebound effect our results show very large rebound effect on energy use 70 and related emissions 90 in 2040 at the global level with regional and sectoral differences important determinants among others are induced labor movement among economic activities and labor supply and substitution elasticity between energy and other goods labor mobility has a marked impact on both rebound effects and on fuel mix the global rebound effect is still considerable even with a low substitution elasticity between energy and other goods the effect of capital accumulation over time contributes marginally to the global rebound effect as it is utilized to promote economic growth by using energy input more efficiently

ex post assessment of china s industrial energy efficiency policies during the eleventh five year plan abstract china implemented a package of policies during the 11th five year plan 2006 2010 to improve industrial energy efficiency this assessment provides a methodology that establishes a causal relationship between policy implementation and energy conservation effects to enhance the confidence in the research findings this assessment applies two distinctive and independent approaches one top down and the other bottom up this assessment finds that industrial energy efficiency policies collectively achieved energy savings of 322 mtce 9 4 ej against the baseline scenario this accounted for 59 of the sector s total energy savings from 2006 to 2010 the remaining energy savings were realised through autonomous technology improvement 33 and sector level structural shift 8 correspondingly cumulative avoided co2 emissions realised through energy efficiency policies amounted to 760 million tons this assessment concludes that industrial energy efficiency policies were effective in realising energy conservation targets but energy conservation effects were not achieved in a cost effective way command and control measures were dominantly implemented with economic incentives and informational measures taking a complementary role while market based instruments did not play an important role as china is planning on implementing a nationwide emissions trading scheme special attention needs to be paid to policy interaction and coordination

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

a multi criteria evaluation framework for tradable white certificate schemes recent years have witnessed regained political momentum on energy efficiency and interest in establishing markets is growing as a result tradable white certificate twc schemes of differing design have been implemented in great britain italy and france much attention is being paid to justifying and evaluating such schemes in this paper we develop and apply a multi criteria framework for evaluating twc schemes an approach that attempts to cover their individual design features a broad evaluation is conducted regarding energy saving and environmental effectiveness economic efficiency cost effectiveness transaction costs political feasibility administrative burden and technical change the results show the design and performance of twc schemes to be case and context specific and generalisations are thus inappropriate this evaluation supports the cost effectiveness modelled for the british scheme and the assumption that a twc scheme is an economically efficient policy instrument for the other more complex twc schemes more data and experience are needed to judge their ex post merit on the whole the proposed multi criteria evaluation requires considerable data and complementary methods however the framework improves the understanding of the broad effects and attributes of twc schemes it deals with various empirical and normative aspects that can be applied in their evaluation

analysis of energy efficiency and energy savings potential in china s provincial industrial sectors abstract because industrial sectors in china are energy intensive improving energy efficiency and promoting energy savings in these sectors are of great importance for the further sustainable development of china s economy using a proposed meta frontier data envelopment analysis dea this paper analyzes the total factor energy efficiency and energy savings potential in china s provincial industrial sectors for the years 2000 2014 from three perspectives namely the technology gap management and scale the results indicate that 1 driven by technological progress energy efficiency during the sample period was greatly improved though the expansion of technology gaps between regions and the decline in scale efficiency represented two significant handicaps 2 the current energy efficiency in china s industrial sectors remains extremely low indicating that there is considerable potential for energy efficiency improvement and energy savings and 3 the sources of energy inefficiency and energy savings potential in china s industrial sectors exhibit spatially distinct characteristics accordingly it is determined that most of china s eastern provinces should focus on improving scale and management efficiency whereas most of its central and western provinces should concentrate on three factors narrowing the regional technology gap improving management efficiency and optimizing the industrial scale

energy saving and energy efficiency concepts for policy making departing from the concept of rational use of energy the paper outlines the microeconomics of end use energy saving as a result of frugality or efficiency measures frugality refers to the behaviour that is aimed at energy conservation and with efficiency we refer to the technical ratio between energy input and output services that can be modified with technical improvements e g technology substitution changing behaviour from one side and technology from the other are key issues for public energy policy in this paper we attempt to identify the effects of parameters that determine energy saving behaviour with the use of the microeconomic theory the role of these parameters is crucial and can determine the outcome of energy efficiency policies therefore policymakers should properly address them when designing policies